


A Good Man Goes To War

by IlaniSilver



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Brotherly Angst, Deviates From Canon, Dragonborn Farkas, Eventual Sex, F/M, Fluff and Smut, NPC Dragonborn - Freeform, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-02-28 18:53:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13277763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IlaniSilver/pseuds/IlaniSilver
Summary: “Man breathed its first breath on the sacred mountain; the last kiss waited atop its summit as well.”Cast through time ages ago, Alduin returns to Nirn. Paarthurnax waits on Monahven, and a Dragonborn waits in the wings.Skyrim has forgotten its history and heritage, and denied its magical roots. Can Farkas discover (and accept) who he is in time to save his beloved motherland?As a true son of Kyne, he’s bound to give it his best shot.





	1. Resolution, Part One

Night will fall and drown the sun when a good man goes to war.  
Friendship dies and true love lies, night will fall and the dark will rise  
When a good man goes to war.  
Demons run, but count the cost. The battle's won, but the child is lost.

\- Steven Moffat

 

  
Atop a snowy mountain, hidden from the world by billowing clouds and icy winds, a dragon waited alone. The gnarled tips of his tattered, golden wings shivered in time with aurora pulsing across the night sky, its waves washing misty-white stars in shades of green and pink and violet.

_Krah dinok._

Paarthurnax grumbled to himself, kindling a fire in his belly and shaking snow from his back. Sometimes, he believed Akatosh elected to play his cosmic game of chess in this icy wasteland just to watch his children squirm. Alduin would have answered their challenge in a warmer clime. Hammerfell, perhaps, or even some blazing desert in Elsweyr.

Paarthurnax tried to picture the time-wound opening on a sandy beach, and frowned. A twinge of guilt dampered his fire and set his tail a-swish, and he rolled his eyes skyward – unworthy ramblings from an ice-addled brain. Of course, it had to be Monahven. After all, man breathed its first breath on the sacred mountain; the last kiss waited atop its summit as well.

A low moan sounded, stark in the midnight stillness. Paarthurnax raised a heavy eyelid, casting a wary glance around the rocky peak with one sleepy, golden eye, but saw nothing amiss – not the wind, nor one of his students braving the stormy path for a midnight chat. Not even a lost ice elemental, winding its way back to its brethren. His eyelid drooped again, the disturbance fading in a drowsy haze. Maybe it  _had_  been the wind after all, or even a distant rumble of thunder. After four thousand years, the few things that moaned and wailed this high above Skyrim’s grassy plains blended into monotony anyway.

Four thousand years…

His eyes closed fast, and he sank into a dream.

_Three armored warriors stood as one under orange-colored skies, their war-cries mere whispers beneath fire and lightning and foul-scented whirling winds._

_“Alduin. Alduin approaches!”_

_The warriors drew breath rather than arms, and a Shout, shattering and unearthly even to one of the grounded, thundered through heavy air._

_Blue-violet lightning surrounded a black dragon, and ripped him from the sky. The mountain shook with the force of his fall._

_But it wasn’t enough – steel and bone crumbled under the strength of Alduin’s maw. Soot-stained snow ran red with blood. Low, dark laughter echoed across the fiery peak._

_It would never be enough._

_“Felldir, read the Scroll! Read it, man!”_

_One last roar, a quiet rustle of parchment._

_And silence, broken only by the clack-clack of wooden rollers as the Elder Scroll closed and tumbled to the ground._

“ _Zeymahi_!”

Paarthurnax opened his eyes, wide and shining as golden coins in the moonlight, and stifled a ragged gasp. _Alduin_. He knew Alduin’s voice as he knew his own. He breathed in and out, trying to calm his pounding heart, and imagined himself still caught in the clutches of sleep, Alduin’s call nothing but a long-forgotten snippet of memory.

Only…

 _Zeymahi_ , Alduin had cried, breaking through his dream like a hammer through glass, the derision in his voice palpable across eons. 

 _Zeymahi_. _My brother._

During their last battle, Alduin had called him many things. Assorted, colorful things. But  _brother_  had not been among them.

“ _Dur zeymahi gruth!”_

Wide awake now, Paarthurnax listened to the echoes of his brother’s disembodied roar thundering across the mountain. A thrill of fear and terror shivered up his spine – Alduin was coming home _._ Paarthurnax gathered up his strength and turned his head toward a small snowbank opposite his eyrie.

_Wind guide me._

Since Alduin’s banishment, the time-wound – the _tiid-ahraan_ – had lain unhealed, but dormant, hanging like a window in the air, its single, circular pane cloudy, its edges transparent and motionless. Indistinct murmurings, rushing winds, and sometimes even muffled conversations had filtered through over the years, but Paarthurnax paid no heed, saving precious effort for his assigned task.

But now, before his eyes, the window flared to life and shimmered with iridescence, its seams fluttering on the edge of whatever cosmic winds held aloft the wings of time, whistling and whispering – with excitement, Paarthurnax thought. His heart gave a sudden leap, and apprehension gave way to anticipation. He’d had four thousand years to prepare – if he wasn’t ready now, he’d never be.

_Sky above, voice within._

The time-wound pulsed with light and whispered again, ancient languages seductive and lyrical. Paarthurnax gulped great lungfuls of cold air. A few errant snowflakes melted on his tongue and cooled his parched throat. His watch would end this night, and not even the Lord of Time knew what tomorrow would bring. Years of spurned curiosity sparked and blazed in his belly; could someone on this side – could  _he_  – look inside? See what his brother had seen? Maybe even get a glimpse of Alduin himself, hurtling through time, trying to find his way back home…

Yes. He had to try.

The ancient dragon leaned forward and flapped his tattered wings, expecting to tumble clumsily into the snow below his eyrie. Instead, he found himself gliding aloft on a sudden gust of wind, and landed steady and true. He shook his great head and chuckled to himself, limping through knee-deep snow.

_Forgive me. Forgive my lack of faith. My lack of courage. For an old dragon, I can be a foolish one, at times._

The warm wind pressed him on and he obeyed, inching closer, closer still, until his jaw almost grazed the glimmering portal. He peered inside. Soft, whispering voices burst into elated song, and his heart nearly stopped. Paarthurnax had lived thousands of years. He’d fought his way through glorious battles, felt love’s keen sting and grief’s crashing waves. Magical beings and even gods had trembled in his wake and begged his service. But none of that compared with what waited on the other side of the veil.

Luminous shades of blue surrounded what could only be stars, but so bright and clear… like sparkling diamonds strewn across sunshot lapis waters. And amid and above and beyond it all danced swirls of color, their ombré ribbons of red, violet, and green so alive, so… _visceral_ , it almost hurt to look.

Paarthurnax managed to tear his burning eyes away and stared up at  _his_  sky. The stars and aurora he’d so long admired seemed diminished compared to what shone within. Dull and mundane. Only a second rate copy, at best, and he found himself wondering how he could stand to live under it, now that he knew what lay beyond. Tears rolled down his snout, and his wings shivered again, this time in awe. Or humility.

Both strange and itchy emotions for a dragon.

Through the veil once more, stars collided and burst apart, diamond dust like brilliant spindrift against the gleaming blue interstellar sea. And music. Paarthurnax closed his eyes and drifted, the music of the stars crashing and swelling to accompany the majesty, the perfect rhythm of–

His eyes flew open, and he knew.

_Creation. I’m watching creation._

An unfettered, savage longing surged in his chest – would Alduin feel the same? Maybe…maybe he wouldn’t want to return. Why leave a place so beautiful, so peaceful? So full of life and untapped power? Paarthurnax stared back into the time wound and thought he spied a faint darkness slithering between the stars, a slight skip in the music. He blinked, and it was gone.

No matter, Paarthurnax resolved, straightening his spine and heaving a great breath. Elder brother would come, and the wheel would turn, as it always had. The debt he owed had come due, and he would pay. “ _Dur zeymahi gruth,”_  Alduin had wailed through the veil. _Curse my brother the traitor._ True it was, and true again. Yes, Paarthurnax would pay.  _Had paid._

But the cost…unfortunately, it would not remain his alone. With Alduin’s arrival, another soul would be called to a destiny unsuitable for his kind. Paarthurnax forced himself back from the time wound and sat on his haunches, wondering yet again at the wisdom of Akatosh’s ‘gift.’

Alduin hadn’t worried overmuch about Miraak, but as _dovahkiin_ , Miraak hadn’t proved much of a threat, refusing their pleas for assistance during the so-called Dragon War and burying his head in the sands of Solstheim instead. He’d been content to let the world burn, choosing to live out what remained of his life as a cult priest, enslaving men and mer under his cruel sway. After Alduin’s banishment, Paarthurnax had lost sight of Miraak, and no longer sensed his spark, his soul.

 _Good riddance._ Paarthurnax felt the same about others who’d been called over the years, before dragons had disappeared from Tamriel entirely – a seemingly endless line of ambitious, power-hungry men and women, eager to use the Voice to achieve their own ends. Paarthurnax had no doubt history would repeat itself this era.

Another  _dovahkiin_  – yet another man or mer called to embrace powers his weak body and limited vision could never contain. To embody legends long since forgotten. A mage from Alinor, perhaps, forging her path to Skyrim under a shroud of suspicion and hatred, borne of war and betrayal. Or, Akatosh might call a Nord - a strong, modern son of Skyrim who’d forgotten his heritage and disavowed the Clever Craft of his ancestors. How would such a man handle the deepest magics flowing through his blood as naturally as water through a riverbed?

Not well, Paarthurnax guessed, and crossed his golden wings to enfold his body, though he no longer felt the cold. No, this was his own destiny, his own doom. His own debt. He had accepted it with full knowledge aforethought. Akatosh would call a dragonborn to answer Alduin, that much he could not change, but Paarthurnax would never again allow another soul to pay a penance it did not owe, and one it could never understand.

Promise made, Paarthurnax executed another clumsy leap and fluttered back to his eyrie. He curled up and closed his eyes, but sleep, once so heavy and welcome, remained elusive. Images of swirling stardust against that intense blue sky swam behind his eyes, and he wondered at the timing. Had someone – had _she_ \- wanted him to see beyond, to look through the veil? He’d been granted a gift – a glimpse at creation, at peace – why?

_Wait for Alduin._

A memory floated through his mind, and his eyes softened – _her_ voice, cajoling and gentle as a spring breeze. He’d know it anywhere.

 _Kyne_.

She’d spoken to him nearly every day of his long, long life, and he’d memorized every word. Even those attached to memories of loss and death, those that lay heaviest on his heart.

_“Paarthurnax...”_

He sat in the middle of the battle’s carnage, blood and bones and ruined armor strewn across the mountain. His brother was gone, cast into the vastness of time. His allies had departed hours before, leaving Paarthurnax alone for what would be the first night of his long, lonely vigil. They’d saved the world -  _their_  world at least - and men and mer cheered their success even as they mourned their fallen. Paarthurnax could see and smell their fires burning for miles below, and hear their songs, but he couldn’t bring himself to join in. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d failed, somehow.

“ _Wait for Alduin.”_

Kyne’s voice sifted through fading twilight, its gentle lilt and accompanying warm breeze wrapping Paarthurnax in much-needed comfort.

_“I will, however long it takes. I’ll stop him, I’ll-“_

_“It will fall to you to stop him.”_ She paused, and sighed. _“And also, to save him.”_

 _“I tried,”_ Paarthurnax wailed, his strength and resolve all but gone _. “We all tried, you had to have seen…”_

_“I did see.”_

Paarthurnax’s heart thudded. Compassion still twined through the words, but also sadness and…censure. He was right – he had failed. But what else could he have done?

_“You will have time to plan, that I can grant. And you are his brother. Save him, if you can. In saving him, you may save so many others.”_

Paarthurnax pulled his mind back from memory and regret. He’d been on the mountain for four thousand cold and lonely years, his perspective and purpose slowly drifting. He’d not lost sight of his goal, no. But he had to admit, he’d lost a bit of hope.

_Save him, if you can._

Alduin was coming, and he’d been granted another chance. Maybe what he’d seen beyond the veil _was_ a gift, one to restore his spirit, revive his hope. Or, perhaps it was a promise. A promise of what lay ahead. Peace and light and warmth – a reward for completing his task, for saving his brother, and…others.

The lovely idea had barely taken root in his mind when Paarthurnax felt warm winds encircle his body, embracing his aching wings and soothing his tattered soul. His heart skipped, and his eyes darted around the peak, though he knew he’d see nothing but a flurry of snowflakes in a sky full of stars.

_“Yes, I am here, Paarthurnax - fahdoni mir, kaali mir.”_

This time, not a memory or a dream, but a simple reminder.

_I am not alone._

His eyelids fell again, heavy and restful upon his eyes. Sleep might remain elusive, but that no longer mattered. He’d wait through the night once more, as he’d waited for thousands of years. He’d wait for what would come, and meet it when it did.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you familiar with Sara Douglass’s Wayfarer Redemption series - yes, my idea of what Paarthurnax is being shown inside the time wound is absolutely inspired by her vision of the Star Gate, and a tribute to one of my favorite authors. For those of you unfamiliar with her works, get familiar. You’ll love them. 
> 
> Krah Dinok: cold of death  
> Fahdoni mir, kaali mir: my loyal friend, my loyal champion


	2. Resolution, Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone reading and commenting so far. I love to talk about the things I write, imagine different scenarios and etc., so please keep them coming! :)

Farkas woke with a start and grabbed his dagger from under his pillow, the cold steel hilt comfortable in his grasp. He sat up on the edge of the bed and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. A warrior never sleeps, Kodlak liked to say. Well, Farkas sure slept better now than in his werewolf days, but he had to admit there was truth in the Harbinger’s words. According to the candle stub on his dresser, it had to be after midnight, but Farkas felt wide awake as he’d ever been.

Nothing seemed amiss, though. No strange noises – no noise at all save whistling wind. The town of Dawnstar boasted no trees with limbs to scratch against walls and windows, and it was too cold for hunting. Even the hungriest wolf would run to shelter on a night like this. But something had dragged him from sleep, he knew, and not a nightmare or a call of nature.

Although…

 _No_. He forced himself to focus, scrubbing his face with his free hand, and stumbled across the room to grab his tunic from a chair. Running naked through Windpeak Inn while brandishing a dagger might make for an interesting story, but not one Kodlak would want to hear in his report – something Farkas knew from experience.

A few years ago he and his shield-sister, Njada, tracked a smuggler from Pale Pass, but lost him at sunset near Helgen. They’d stopped at the inn, determined to pick up his trail again the next morning. Helgen’s butcher saved them the effort. He’d stumbled upon the exhausted smuggler camped out under a shed near his smokehouse a few hours before dawn, and had yelled loud enough to wake the entire town. Including Farkas, who’d bolted through the inn and out the door, pausing to grab his sword, but not his pants.

Njada left that part out of her report, but rumor traveled fast, and Kodlak had been less than impressed with what he’d termed Farkas’s ‘ludicrous display,’ explaining that he’d made the Companions look unprofessional. Well, he’d caught the damned smuggler, hadn’t he? And his ‘display’ had earned him a few more visits back to Helgen over the years, and for pleasure, not business, so he counted the mission an overall success.

He really did have to pee, though. Call of nature wasn’t so far off. He chuckled, but the forced lightheartedness did nothing to quell a sense of unease building in his belly. Something hovered at the back of his mind – a voice, a distant, echoing voice – but he couldn’t quite place it. Had someone called out for him, and he’d slept through it? He must be groggier than he’d thought.

Perhaps it _had_ been only a dream.

Farkas threw his tunic over his head and silently slipped from the room. The feeling of wrongness, of being beckoned and pulled toward… _something_ , intensified. But the common room was dark, cold and quiet, and –

It was too quiet.

“Fucking hired hands,” he whispered, leaning against a wooden column and staring at an empty table in front of the room across the hall. His gaze traveled to the inn’s front door – unlatched and left open a crack. Tiny hairs stood up on the back of Farkas’s neck, and he tiptoed across the room and opened his charge’s door, peeking inside. He shut it again, and let out a sigh of relief that turned into a short, irritated growl.

Ysmir’s beard, he’d never understand the Legion’s fascination with pipeweed. Mead was warmer and didn’t stink near as much. And you didn’t have to go out in the damned cold to drink it, he thought, glowering and throwing the front door open, a gust of wind screaming through his thin tunic and setting embers ablaze in the common room’s firepit. Sure enough, the guard he’d assigned second watch leaned, shivering, against the carved bannister, blowing thick rings of smoke into freezing air. Farkas cleared his throat, and she jumped, fumbling her pipe and dropping it into the snow.

A lazy, malingering little bastard she might be, but options lay thin on the ground after Ulfric Stormcloak’s little stunt last month. Jarl of Eastmarch had gone and killed King Torygg and disappeared into the mountains; according to rumors, he’d used magic, which surprised Farkas more than the deed itself. Especially once he’d reappeared a few days ago in Windhelm with a bloody army, calling for all ‘true sons and daughters of Skyrim’ to join up. Wipe the elves and Imperial scum from the motherland. Earn honor and glory. How killing his sworn liege with filthy magic earned Ulfric honor and glory, Farkas didn’t understand.

But Skyrim had answered Ulfric’s call, in droves. Every Companion who’d arrived in Dawnstar with Farkas had bolted, unable to stay on, thinking of their brothers and sisters back home who’d be joining the Stormcloak rebellion. All in all, a roundabout answer to a simple question – how Farkas ended up stuck in Skyrim’s frozen backwater, waiting for someone he could hire to help him escort Ulfberth War-Bear’s niece down to Whiterun.

“ _You deliver Britta in one piece, or I can promise you, my man, you won’t be for much longer.”_ The steely gleam in Ulfberth’s eyes told Farkas he’d meant business, and the gleam on the deadly ebony dagger his wife, Adrienne, had quietly sharpened behind them said the same.

So Farkas had waited, and he’d still be waiting if Jarl Skald hadn’t thrown his lot in with Ulfric and dismissed everyone on his staff who lacked Nord blood. Several Imperial guard had jumped at the chance to travel with him to Whiterun instead of going back to Solitude (and General Tullius) and rejoining the ranks of the Legion. Farkas didn’t blame them – the man was a prick. Sure, Jarl Balgruuf might send them right back to Solitude, but a chance was a chance.

Farkas glowered and jerked his head toward the common room, and the delinquent soldier trotted over the threshold, her cheeks pinking the least little bit at having been caught. Or, he thought, looking down at his dangerously-billowing tunic with a slight flush of his own, maybe his lack of pants had something to do with it. He swore under his breath. He never had to put on pants to answer his door at Jorrvaskr. The sooner they got back to Whiterun, the better. The latch clicked shut and Farkas turned toward the guard, who’d taken her place at the table. “Arrius?”

She flinched, and stood back up, banging her thigh against the table and knocking over a candlestick. “Yes, sir?”

“Sit back down,” he said, picking up the candle and relighting it from the firepit. He slammed it down on the table only a little harder than he had to. “Don’t move until Sprague comes to relieve you. Understand?”

She nodded, her brown eyes flicking over his bare legs again for the briefest second.

“You pull a stunt like that again, and I’ll write Tullius myself and let him know you’re currently unemployed.”

Without waiting for a reaction, Farkas stalked back to his room, undressed, and climbed into bed. Morning came early so far north, and he needed all the sleep he could get. He’d almost made it, sinking into a comfortable doze, when his eyes flew open. _Dammit_. He still had to pee. Well, he wasn’t going to backtrack past Arrius to the privy.

He sat up and looked around the room, eyeing an empty bottle, but a sudden snowy gust lashing against the window revealed a better option. Bedroom was stuffy anyway, Farkas thought, pushing the casements all the way out and filling his lungs with icy air.

Dawnstar wasn’t so bad, especially for a Nord. After all, he stood bare as the day he was born before an open window in the middle of a snowstorm, and felt nothing cooler than an early spring breeze or a chilly shower after a hard training session. Refreshing. Plus, he liked the quiet. Even Whiterun felt a little too crowded every once in a while, and Dawnstar’s stillness made for a nice change of pace.

Yes, things could always be worse. He could have been stranded in Winterhold, and Farkas considered that absolute rock bottom. Not only had the city nearly been annihilated by wizards, the few remaining buildings existing on a precipice thousands of feet above the Sea of Ghosts, but the damned wizards had the gall to remain, safe and sound in their precious college.

A flash of green caught his eye, and Farkas looked up. Aurora streaked across a clear swath of sky, and he stared, entranced by bright blues and greens and pinks swirling and dancing among surprisingly clear stars. Aurora rarely put on a show over Whiterun. Farkas wasn’t sure why, but his brother Vilkas figured it had something to do the Throat of the World, a massive mountain to the southeast, and its constant cloud-cover. Both hands gripping the casement frames, he leaned out, over the sill and into the snow, watching one last arc of light fade behind racing stormclouds. _That’s all the magic I need._

The casements creaked under his weight, and another gust blew into the room, coating his chest and unbraided black hair with snow. Farkas brushed himself off, finally feeling the chill, and took care of business, but as he’d leaned out again to pull the window shut, a sound caught his attention. A voice, crying on the wind – a distant, echoing voice that, strangely enough, brought his brother’s face to mind once more. Or maybe writing his name in the snow did that – Vilkas sure was a master of the medium.

He sighed, his blue eyes scanning the woods behind the inn, just visible in the disappearing moonlight, but nothing moved. He sighed again, a heavier gust that set falling snowflakes a-swirl, and slammed one fist against the window frame. It wasn’t Arrius. He knew that now, and his second attempt to lighten his mood had done nothing to curb the niggling sense of unease that, he hated to admit, had lain curled in his belly since he’d awakened. Something felt… _off_. When he’d found Arrius shirking her watch, he was sure she’d been the culprit, but now...

If his hired hands weren’t the cause of the pit in his stomach, what could it be?

Swearing under his breath, he pulled the casements shut and fastened the snibs. Vilkas would worry about something like that, which was a good indication Farkas needed to stop thinking and go to sleep. More than anyone he knew, his brother had the uncanny ability to see problems where none existed, and to dither himself into Oblivion where there was no need. Nope, one worry-wart in the family was more than enough. Vilkas might be the smarter twin, but Farkas got more beauty rest. He’d happily take that trade. Farkas scrubbed at his face and climbed back into bed, slipping his hand under his pillow to grip his dagger. Again, the steel felt comfortable in his grip. Reassuring. He shut his eyes, allowing memories of the aurora to soothe his troubled mind, and drifted off to sleep.

 

 


	3. Mercy

“Alduin.”

Paarthurnax crouched in the sun-drenched snow, his wings held halfway aloft. The tension had his haunches and shoulders aching, his atrophied muscles quivering with strength he didn’t know he possessed.

_And for what? It’s not like I could fly away._

He fought a strangely-human desire to void his stomach, but managed to clear his throat and swallow, instead. “Alduin,” he said again, taking a small step toward the black dragon curled in a heap at the foot of his eyrie, shivering and silent, his wings twisted around his body. “Brother.”

Paarthurnax took a deep, ragged breath and forced himself to unclench.

_He is your brother. This is your task. Breathe._

And he did, in and out, until his heartbeat slowed to a more comfortable rate. Almost back to the pace he’d enjoyed before Alduin’s homecoming – before the world, or at least his small corner of it, had gone mad.

He’d been waiting on his eyrie, drifting in and out of sleep, when something roused him to full alert. Vague discontent niggled at his gut for a moment or two before he realized what was wrong – it was too quiet, even for his solitary mountain. Pale, pink light shone above the eastern horizon, but the birds and insects that usually carolled in the dawn stayed in their nests, hushed and still. Even the wind had died down, but the resulting silence wasn’t one of peace – tension sang through heavy air, and the world held its breath, waiting on something of its own. Paarthurnax blinked. The time wound shimmered and pulsed with light.

At once, everything stirred to life. Wind and breath drifted around the mountain, and Paarthurnax took in a deep breath of his own, ready to exhale a sigh of relief. But relief never came – instead of waning, the tension built, climbing higher and higher. The air didn’t simply move – it _flowed_ toward the time wound – and not only air, but sound and light and the very breath within his lungs, everything rushed toward the _tiid-ahraan_ in an increasingly frenzied stream. Paarthurnax found himself caught in the throes. His heart raced and his blood surged with an intensity he’d only felt in the height of battle, boiling beneath his skin and goading him to action he could no longer take – he needed to run, to sink his claws into an enemy, to fly away from his cursed prison, and he roared into the wind at the _unfairness_ , his wasted years and wasted life.

Paarthurnax roared once and again, his lungs empty and burning and his every nerve on fire, and the building tension finally reached its zenith. For one moment, perfect stillness reigned, and he waited. For he knew – the mountain had breathed in life, and when she exhaled again, life would follow swiftly, this time on black, angry wings.

But the dragon didn’t know everything: the mountain didn’t exhale – she screamed, exploding into fury. Winds shrieked and orange clouds lightened the skies, once again raining fire and storms on the mountain’s peak. The time wound, normally the size of a small fox, grew until it dwarfed even Paarthurnax himself and spun with blinding speed, its edges rimmed in fire and crackling sparks.

Paarthurnax shielded his eyes from the storm and stared at the fiery wheel, entranced. The stars and planets and luminous blue had given way to orange clouds and angry roars and the screams of battle. He covered his thudding heart with a claw.

_The last battle._

He clunked down from his eyrie and limped across the peak. Except for the fire limning its edges, the time wound blended seamlessly into his own air and sky. Past and present, touching for one moment and melding, indistinct and inseparable. Amid the storm, Alduin roared and laughed with all the good nature of a frost troll. And below his looming menace…

_My friends._

Gormlaith, Hakon, and Felldir began as his most illustrious students of the Voice, but over the years, a common cause combined with uncommon valor deepened the connection. He never thought to see his brothers-in-arms again, but there they were, striding to meet the World Eater, their foolish and beautiful bravado bringing a wistful smile to Paarthurnax’s heavily-lined face.

 _Alive, one last time. I could use your counsel today, old friends._ Awash in nostalgia, he lifted one tremulous claw and slowly reached out toward the time wound…

And the Elder Scroll snapped shut, its rollers clacking against the ground.

Something black streaked toward Paarthurnax’s face, and he yelped and jumped to the side with athleticism he’d not displayed in centuries. One last crash, and the time wound closed and darkened. A light breeze stirred the air around the mountain, and within minutes, birds and insects chirped and sang in the watery, dawn light. With a heavy heart, Paarthurnax clawed his way back to his feet and shook snow from tattered wings, turning to face the enormous, dark shape collapsed near his eyrie.

_Wait for Alduin. Save him if you can._

Paarthurnax sighed and tore his thoughts from the past – his old friends needed him no longer, he thought, turning to gaze at the enormous, dark shape near his eyrie. His brother, on the other hand…

“Alduin,” Paarthurnax whispered a third time, lifting a wing to shade his eyes from the mid-morning sun, and stepped closer to his brother. Alduin had been ejected from the time wound at a frightening speed, skidding across the snow and crashing into the curved wall below Paarthurnax’s perch. One wing looked bent and possibly broken, but physical injuries were the least of his concerns.

Alduin’s banishment from Nirn lasted four thousand years. In that time, the reign of dragons had ended, dead and buried in humble barrows all over Skyrim. Time itself had splintered and reformed, kingdoms risen and fallen myriad times over. Even the gods had evolved.

His entire world, completely changed in a blink of his eye. Or so it would seem when he awakened.

A groan sounded from the wall and slowly, Alduin rolled his great head over his shoulders and looked at his brother. His red eyes flared, and he twisted his body and tried to stand, putting pressure on his injured wing. Alduin – World Eater, Bane of Kings – cried out in pain and fell back down, supine, in the snow.

Paarthurnax took a step closer, and Alduin roared, a weak gout of fire spurting from his maw. “No closer, brother. Traitor,” he spat. You may have won, but I know you betrayed me, dirtied our language, our very being – our power – wasting it on those –“

Alduin broke off, squinting into the sky and staring at fluffy white clouds and golden sunlight. “What-“

He broke off again and growled, twisting his head at an awkward angle to cast a glance around the silent peak, confusion dulling his eyes. “Where…the battle, the humans with the Elder Scroll, they were-“

Alduin’s gaze sharpened, resting upon the snowbank behind Paarthurnax. He grunted and rolled over on his belly, using his one good wing to push himself up to a crouch. “Explain,” he said, desperation creeping into his voice as he stared at the time wound. The _tiid-ahraan_ had shrunk and darkened, but could not hide from one who’d traveled its depths.

Paarthurnax marveled. While facing what he believed to be his ultimate defeat, Alduin had threatened and blustered, brash and defiant as he’d ever been. But the presence of the _tiid-ahraan_ truly scared him, and Paarthurnax understood. Coming to terms with a lifetime of years gone in an instant could prove to be quite the – what was the term one of his less eloquent students had used a few years ago? Oh, yes, he remembered, chuckling to himself. Quite the ‘mind-fuck.’

“The Elder Scroll,” Paarthurnax said, glancing over his shoulder at the time wound, “was not an instrument of your destruction, as you feared.”

“I feared nothing.”

Paarthurnax inclined his head. “As you wish. The humans did not wield the Elder Scroll to hasten your death, but merely as a stalling tactic. The battle – our fight – was lost. You won, Alduin. Even given my defection, even given… _dragonrend_.”

Both dragons shivered, unable to contain their revulsion and soul-deep terror. Paarthurnax gazed upon his brother with unaffected sympathy – he’d merely seen the Shout in action during the final battle, but his brother experienced it firsthand. Experienced his own mortality. An irreconcilable paradox, and yes, quite the mind-fuck indeed, for a dragon. Paarthurnax shivered again, and brought his mind back to the task at hand. “Felldir read the Elder Scroll to rip a hole in time. When it opened, time itself pulled you through, and spit you out here.”

Alduin stared at Paarthurnax, his narrowed eyes lighting on his brother’s tattered wings and wizened body. “How long?”

Paarthurnax swallowed. “Four millennia, brother, and a sprinkling of years.”

“And our brothers and sisters?” Alduin’s good wing twitched. “My lieutenants, my priests…”

At Paarthurnax’s level gaze, Alduin forgot his injury and threw out his wings, wailing in agony. He growled, and grasped at his crooked wing with a claw. “I do not believe you.”

“I do not know if they are dead or merely asleep. Or gone, across oceans or through the barriers that separate our world from so many others. But yes, it is true. Four thousand years, brother, passed for you in the blink of an eye.”

“How are you here, then? Awake, alone on this mountain?” Alduin shook his head, an uncharacteristically sympathetic huff escaping his jaw. “And _why_ would you stay?”

Paarthurnax didn’t doubt his brother’s momentary concern – their kind needed stimulation and society. It was part of the reason they were so eager to accept rule and domination over what they considered lesser species, and one reason Paarthurnax himself kept taking students over the centuries. Yes, they had their eyries for momentary retreat, but for the most part solitude was, as any dragon would agree and as Paarthurnax knew all too well, overrated. “It…was my task. To wait here, for you.”

“You’ve been alone on this mountain with nothing but your own company? Over so many years? Centuries? Millennia?” Alduin shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and stretched his legs. “A punishment, indeed. Do you regret it, brother?”

“Do you?” Paarthurnax’s stomach twisted. Had it been a punishment? He hadn’t considered it to be so, but…

_Wait for Alduin. Save him, if you can._

Alduin snorted. “I regret nothing. I was born to rule, and rule I shall.”

“You were born to destroy, brother, not to create your own empire. It was not your time then, and it is not your time now – this _kalpa_ is young, its inhabitants still breaking against each other like rocks in the throes of creation, their stardust not even beginning to settle,” Paarthurnax said, his eyes pleading with his brother’s. “It is not your time.”

“But I am still here, am I not? Our father has not seen fit to stop me. I will not be stopped by the likes of you.”

“He is not the only power in play,” Paarthurnax said under his breath, and took a step forward. “Remember where you are.”

“It matters not,” Alduin said, and backed up, his actions and flaring eyes betraying his confident speech. “You cannot defeat me in your grizzled state, brother. Even with my crippled wing.”

“I am not here to defeat you. And you are not crippled,” Paarthurnax said, and took a deep breath. “ _Slen Haas Vokrii!_ ”

Alduin stumbled back and growled again as golden mist encased his wing and sank into his flesh. “I could have done that, myself.”

Paarthurnax raised his brow, but said nothing, watching Alduin wiggle his shoulder a little before unfurling his wings to full span.

“Do not think this changes anything, brother.” Alduin rose to full height and flapped his wings. His roar echoed around the mountain. “You have picked the losing side, and I will not stay here to sink into obscurity with you. I will, however, leave you with your life,” Alduin said, looking around the mountain with a smirk before launching himself into the sky. “Such as it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slen Haas Vokrii – a healing Shout I cobbled together. The words mean “body health restore.”
> 
> So, someone told me the other day (not re this story, but another one) that I tend to be too descriptive and “poetic” in my word usage. I like being poetic, but... My goal here is to make you guys feel like you’re on the mountain with Paarthurnax and Alduin, feeling what they feel, seeing what they see. But I don’t want to make you fall asleep while doing it. So, honest opinions - should I cut down on the description? Is it too much? Just enough? Not enough? Every reader’s different, so there’s no one answer, but I’m curious what you all think. TIA!


	4. Recognition

Farkas sat his horse and tried to remember the last time he felt so underqualified for a contract. He’d slain giants. Chased bandits and thieves from one end of the Rift to the other with no trouble at all. Last year, Kodlak sent him and Vilkas to roust a nest of hagravens outside Rorikstead, and he had to admit they’d been a challenge, what with their screeching and disease-ridden claws and nonstop fireballs.

Britta, Ulfberth’s eleven-year-old niece, was proving just as formidable.

“Do you have any kids?”

“No.”

“But there’s other kids in Whiterun?”

“Mmhm.”

“What are they like?”

Farkas tried to picture the horde of ankle-biters constantly roaming the village, begging for a game of tag. “Um, there’s a…little one, and a loud one, and one with – I don’t know, ponytails?” _Sweet Dibella, I’d rather be fighting hagravens._ “I don’t know what to tell you, Britta. They’re not my kids, I don’t know what they’re like.”

“But,” the little girl whined, “what am I going to be _doing_ there?”

“I don’t know,” Farkas said, rubbing his eyes and trying not to snap at the kid. His eyelids felt like sandpaper. “That’s for your aunt and uncle to decide. I’m just supposed to get you there safely, as I told you yesterday. And the day before that.”

Farkas’s head ached after two nearly sleepless nights peppered by brutal nightmares – storms raging on top of a mountain, lighting and screaming wind. Fire raining down on a battle, bloodier than stories he’d read in Vilkas’s books. Bodies burning and breaking on the mountain’s peak. The screams…

And something roared, something huge and fast as lightning. Roared and flew on wings, black as night, its eyes red. _Fiery_.

Farkas shuddered, and his horse whinnied, sensing its rider’s unease. He stroked its neck and scanned the snowdrifts along the frozen road. Nothing, as usual, but between the nightmares and that weird incident back at the inn, Farkas had to admit to feeling a little shaken up.

Worse than all that, though, Ulfberth’s niece was proving…chatty. Farkas found most conversation tiresome on any given day, but Britta chattered nonstop. His Legion recruits, Sprague and Sebastian and Arrius, rode with them and were doubtless better talkers, but no – it was Farkas Britta annoyed with her fairy stories. It was Farkas she’d badgered into some weird role-play involving a princess and a chipmunk at a wedding. And always, the endless, maddening barrage of questions.

Farkas was in no mood.

“What if they want me to learn how to smith? I don’t want to do that. Mama’s never let me near a forge. I’ve never even picked up a dagger.”

Farkas rolled his eyes. Ulfberth’s sister was a surprise – as different from her brother as she could possibly be. Tiny and delicate, her piercing blue eyes shone with an intensity that had Farkas inching back during their introduction. Just a step or two, maybe. And her white face glowed unearthly pale, surrounded by a messy cloud of raven-black hair.

On top of all this, she fancied herself some sort of a seer. In fact, she’d sent Britta to Whiterun on account of a premonition – war and disaster the likes Skyrim had never seen. And she wanted her little girl inside a walled city when it came. According to the innkeeper back in Dawnstar, she was the real deal, and made people more than a little nervous.

Farkas put no stock in magic of any kind, and a mother who’d abandon her child to go petition Idgrod Ravencrone – another nutty seer – to listen to her rantings and ravings wasn’t worth much in his book.

“You’ll do as you’re told,” he barked, and glanced over his shoulder. The little girl’s blue eyes widened in her thin face. Farkas’s own eyes softened a bit, and he swore under his breath. An eleven-year old girl had no business living among strangers. She’d already lost her father to a hunting accident years ago, according to Ulfberth. What she needed was her mother; even an unstable mother had to be better than none at all. “Ulfberth and Adrianne are friends. They’re kind and they have a warm home. You’ll be fine, Britta.”

Britta rode in silence for a blessed minute or two, and then pointed off the road to a grove of spindly evergreens. Under snow-bowed branches peeked a tumbledown henge, its black-stained monoliths stark against the white ground. “What’re those?”

Farkas looked where she pointed, and huffed. The girl really hadn’t been out much. “Weynon Stones. Built by ancient Nords come down from Atmora. No idea why, or for what. You could ask my brother when we get to Whiterun, that’s more his speed. But there’s a shrine to Talos there, so it’s important for Nords. Most Nords, anyway.”

“What do you think about Talos?” Britta patted her horse’s neck and the beast trotted forward a step or two until she was riding beside Farkas. “The fight, I mean. Ulfric.”

Farkas snorted. “Not my fight. I protect the people of Skyrim, and that means I protect them from Thalmor who want to hurt them for no reason. And from Ulfric, for that matter, if he tries anything he shouldn’t. I’m a Companion, and Companions don’t take sides in the civil war.”

“But Ulfric killed your king,” Britta said, her eyes flashing a little too much like her mother’s. “Doesn’t that-“

“I don’t care much for politics, and-“

“Mama said Talos is coming back. Well, not Talos, but…”

Britta cocked her head to the side and frowned. “Ysmir, Dragon of the North,” she recited, her tongue tangling a bit around the unfamiliar name. “That’s it. She said Talos wasn’t just one man, but many. And Ysmir’s coming back to save Skyrim.”

Talking politics made Farkas’s head hurt, and talking mysticism made it even worse. “Hey, Britta,” he said, clearing his throat and swallowing around a sudden tightness in his chest. “Can we not-”

He coughed and pulled at the fur-lined neckband of his armor. Something felt off, like he was riding into battle without his sword or his greaves. He tapped the sword at his hip for reassurance.

“Mama says Nords shouldn’t worship him, though.” Britta ignored Farkas’s objections and continued her lecture. “He took things that weren’t his and lived without honor. Mama says Nords hold a lot of the wrong people in rev – um, r-reverence, like Ysgramor-”

“What’s wrong with Ysgramor?” Farkas did snap then, coming to the founder of the Companions’ defense. He hoped his tone might warn Britta away from her line of conversation, or even better, conversation altogether. Something was wrong, something was… _off_. But what?

He nudged his horse with his left foot and gently pulled his reins to the left. The beast lumbered slowly across the road in a giant circle, and Farkas scanned the snowdrifts again, catching the eyes of his guard. Nothing seemed amiss, but...

“Well, he invaded and killed all the elves that lived here,” Britta said. “That wasn’t right.”

“They tried to kill him first, and his family, from what my brother told me,” Farkas said, pulling at his neckband again. His heart beat faster, hard against his chest, and his armor felt tight. “And anyway, they didn’t kill all the elves. Some of them are still here, aren’t they?”

“Did he really have to follow them to Solstheim and wipe them out?” Britta frowned and planted her hands on her hips. “That’s just mean. And then –“

“Yeah, well. Reachmen rip each other’s hearts out and replace them with damn pine cones,” Farkas said, his voice sounding choked to his own ears. His nightmares flashed behind his eyes, and he heard a sudden pounding of hooves. Thunder and lightning crashed in his head. _Something’s coming._ He groaned, and grabbed the hilt of his sword and pulled it a few inches. “We evolved, didn’t we?”

Arrius pulled even to Farkas and gave him a once-over, her eyes narrowed. “Sir, are you quite all right?” She looked back over her shoulder at the other Imperials and shrugged.  
  
In lieu of answering Arrius, Farkas gagged and slid from his horse, the contents of his stomach rising. _Fire. Glinting, bloody steel._ He barely made it off the road before emptying his guts in the snow-covered grass. _Black wings._

“Oh no!” Britta cried out with surprising sympathy for all her whining, and dismounted, searching through her saddlebags. “Are you sick?” She trudged toward Farkas, a red bottle in her hand.

Farkas backed up and clambered onto an embankment. He couldn’t see what was chasing him, but something had to be. The roads looked clear, but he could swear he heard screaming off in the distance, and his blood fairly boiled in his veins. He couldn’t breathe.

_He couldn’t breathe._

Scrabbling at his armor, he wrenched the chest and backplates until the buckles fell open. Loosening the plates helped. Farkas gulped lungfuls of air before jumping off the embankment, and walked back to his horse for his waterskin. Just a few hours to go before they reached Whiterun, and he could get a good night’s sleep, catch up on the gossip. Listen to Vilkas’s take on the whole Ulfric mess, and see how many more-

“Sir.”

Farkas started at Arrius’s voice. She pointed toward the south, her expression much like his own must have been just before he threw up. Farkas shaded his eyes against the snow’s glare. The southern sky had grown dark, and something seemed to slither through gray clouds, heading their way. Something…monstrous big. Like a thousand hawks, or a flying mammoth, or…

_Black wings, lightning fast._

Farkas swore out loud, this time. His nightmares had never come true before, and they weren’t going to start now. He and Britta didn’t have time to mount their horses – they’d have to run for the henge. “Go!” Farkas spurred Arrius’s horse, and she took off, not waiting for additional guidance. “Head for the stones,” Farkas shouted, and the remaining guards followed.

Britta squealed as Farkas grabbed her up and carried her under one arm. A roar shook the ground, and he stumbled. They weren’t going to make it to the henge. Another roar, and a gout of fire sprayed the road to the north, overtaking the guards.

Farkas stood in shock, watching the thing fly to the north and slowly make a circle in the darkened sky before coming back their way. They wouldn’t make the stones either. He looked around, and saw a small hollow under the embankment by the road. He and Britta might be able to squeeze in. With his shield and armor between them, even if the monster decided to spit fire again, the girl might make it out alive.

Farkas set Britta on her feet and knelt down to her level. “After it’s gone, head down the road south,” he directed, and pointed toward Whiterun, trying to stay calm. “Tell the guards what you saw and get to the jarl. And tell Ulfberth to explain to Kodlak what-”

“N-no.” Britta shook her silver-blonde head, her eyes never leaving the flying monster circling above the clouds. It flew higher than before, but Farkas could still hear its roars – or growls, they sounded like now, almost like a discontented wolf searching for prey. _What’s it waiting for?_

“No, no, no, n-no,” Britta said, hysteria taking her already shrill voice up another octave. “I can’t. I can’t! Y-you-“

“Yeah,” Farkas said, and clapped his hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to try.” He pulled Britta’s chin down. “Look at me. I’m going to try. But if I can’t, if I can’t get out of here, you’re going to need to know what to do, and where to go.”

Britta hiccuped and shook her head again.

“Hey,” Farkas said, and forced himself to smile. He hoped it looked like the real thing. “You with me, here?”

The terrified little girl finally nodded and swallowed hard, her blue eyes wide and wet with tears.

“You’re going to be fine,” Farkas said, and tossed her into the snowy hollow. He arranged his large form over her slight one, and pulled his shield behind his back.

The ground shook again, the concussion from the beast’s wings flinging snow and mud into the hollow, and Farkas gritted his teeth, waiting for the roar he knew would come.

And the fire.

 _Dragon_ , he mouthed to himself, giving voice to what he’d known, but never believed. From that first morning he’d awakened, shuddering and sweating from nightmares filled with black wings and red eyes, he’d known.

A dragon, alive, in the sky. In _his_ sky. He’d seen pictures of them in barrows, and in books Vilkas and Vignar liked to read. The palace at Dragonsreach was built around their legend, of course. But that’s all it was – legend.

_Kyne. Akatosh. Talos. Please…_

No more.

_Mara. Dibella._

Legend no more. Real, and circling closer, ever closer. Farkas’s muscles tensed with the strain of holding his crouch above Britta. Not that he was anxious to die that day, but what was taking so long? Where was the roar, and the fire?

_What are you waiting for?_

Another roar, and Farkas felt the shield on his back shake in his fist. Britta screamed against his chest and beat his armor with her tiny hands. “Shhh,” Farkas crooned. She’d started to whimper and fight, and Farkas couldn’t blame her. She’d seen that dragon fly down and kill their guards in seconds flat, and they’d been galloping at top speed. He and Britta should have been easy pickings.

But the fire didn’t come. Instead, the earth convulsed under their hollow and great heaps of dirt from the embankment rained down, covering them with dirt and rocks and rotting roots. Farkas held his breath and tried to keep most of the dirt from Britta’s face, and listened. Silence. A booming thud, and the ground shook again.

More dirt fell into his face, and Farkas knew – the dragon had landed, and stepped closer. Something very like a sniff sounded from outside the layers of mud and snow.

Another step, and a wave of rage surged through Farkas’s body. If not for Britta, he’d smash through his muddy cage and fight the dragon, one on one. Death would come anyway – it might as well come with a sword in his hand. Instead, he pushed his anger down, and bottled it up in a silent scream.

_What do you want?_

More silence, and then a low, guttural laugh. The beast shuffled its feet and spoke one word, in a language Farkas didn’t understand.

But beasts didn’t speak, he reminded himself. Just another growl. He tightened his core and held his crouch, continuing his prayers to every god in existence.

One more dark chuckle, and a swift intake of breath, and Farkas’s existence dwindled to little more than fire and screams and pain.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I worked my favorite Farkas in-game dialogue here. :)
> 
> Also, my daughter had me do that exact role-play once. Princess and chipmunk. No idea where they come up with this stuff.


	5. Valor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone reading and commenting and giving kudos. :) It means so freaking much.

Snow gave way to white, burning sands and skies a brilliant blue. Scant, fluffy white clouds burst against Paarthurnax’s face, their moisture welcome on his leathery skin. His wings tipped, and the horizon shimmered. Blue sky met languid turquoise water.

People didn’t usually smile and wave when dragons flew overhead, but these did - a crowd of happy men, women, and children lounging lazily on a holiday beach, their faces rich and dusky in the sun. The dragon tipped his wings in greeting and wheeled overhead, swooping and dipping in warm, salt-scented thermals. Sunshine glanced off golden scales, iridescent and shining.

He couldn’t remember ever feeling so joyful, so… _alive_.

Another white cloud floated just ahead. No, not a cloud, but a flock of gulls – Paarthurnax could hear rustling wings. As one, the gulls dived for the beach, and the ground shook with the force of their touchdown. Walls of sand erupted from the center of the blast, casting the beach in shadow.

_How strange._  

Paarthurnax glided over the beach, his stomach pitching along with his wings. The mass of gulls darkened to black, and writhed in the sandy waves. Red, burning eyes opened and stared.

“Brother.”

Paarthurnax felt something cold and soft splash against his face.

_But...the ocean's so warm._

He threw a wing out against the chilly invader and willed himself to stay asleep.

“Brother.”

_Fuck_. Paarthurnax brushed a clump of snow from his snout. “Your-"

Another clump hit him right in the eyes, and he blinked it away. "Your timing could be better, brother. And stop kicking snow at me. I assure you, it lost its novelty centuries ago.”

“Oh dear,” Alduin said with a sneer, “did I interrupt your nap?”

“You did.” Paarthurnax answered in clipped tones. He wouldn’t elaborate – his dreams were his, alone.

Alduin eyed Paarthurnax, his face inscrutable, and watched his brother stretch once more, shaking snow from ragged, golden wings. “You waited for me, all this time. You truly waited. All alone on this heap of rock.”

Paarthurnax snorted. “You didn’t believe me.”

“No,” Alduin snarled. He kicked at a snowdrift with one clawed foot.

“I alone knew what had happened,” Paarthurnax said. He wasn’t surprised Alduin had doubts, that he required proof before he’d believe such an outlandish story. Four thousand years…gone. Sometimes Paarthurnax could hardly believe it himself. “I alone knew you would come back here, but not when. What choice did I have?”

“You've always had choices. Oblivion take it, you were the only dragon in the country for how many centuries?" Alduin paced before the curved wall, throwing an accusing claw up at his brother. "Then again, maybe you aren't one of us after all. No self-respecting dragon would have passed up that sort of opportunity.”

"As I said, it was my task. But I suppose you're right. I did have choices, I always have."

Alduin took a shuffling step toward the time wound, and flinched. Paarthurnax fought to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching. “As do you.”

The two dragons stewed in silence. Paarthurnax felt himself begin to nod back off, when his brother made a rumbling sound in his throat. Paarthurnax looked up to find Alduin’s narrowed eyes focused on the ground, his bony brows lowered.

“So,” Paarthurnax began, pausing for another mighty yawn, “is something on your mind?”

Alduin’s feet shuffled in the snow, and he appeared almost uncomfortable. Confused, even. Odd emotions for any dragon, Alduin especially. He rumbled again and snapped his eyes up to his brother. “Why did you heal me?”

“Talk of choices once again. You are my brother. I do not wish you pain.”

Alduin snarled and waved a clawed wing over the edge of the mountain. “What of our brothers and sisters? Did you think on their fate when you encouraged the humans to read that cursed Scroll?”

“The Scroll was a last resort, remember?"

"I do," Alduin said, his voice barely a whisper. "I remember."

Paarthurnax's throat closed, and he coughed to clear it. "I am sorry, brother."

"You're not sorry you tried to kill me. You're just sorry the attempt was unsuccessful."

"I am sorry it came to that at all. But back to your first accusation. Did I think on their fate? Yes, and yes again, every day of the last four millennia.” Paarthurnax nodded and folded his wings under his chin. “There is a time for everything – you know this as well as anyone. Better, even. Perhaps our time has come and gone. But my answer is still the same – I healed you because you are my brother. I do not wish you pain.”

“But you will not support my rule," Alduin spat. "You never have.”

“It is not your place, Alduin. Akatosh-“

“Akatosh,” Alduin intoned, the name harsh on his tongue, “I flew for days over old mountains and new cities and heard prayers to Akatosh, among others. Others who failed to answer. New names for old ideas. I do not concern myself with beings who languish, sequestered in their own little paradise and leave us to this wasteland. Whether they deny their own power, or lie powerless – either way, they matter not.”

Alduin stepped closer to the time wound, his feet and wings steady this time. “I remember hearing those prayers called in my name, you know, before anyone spoke of Akatosh. I will make this land my own once more.”

Paarthurnax nodded. “And the  _dovahkiin_?”

“Another puny human with the Voice is still a puny human. Hungry for power and overly reliant on an instinct for self-preservation.” Alduin snorted. “Just like the last. If this one crosses me, he will die.”

“We all die, eventually,” Paarthurnax said, and huffed, a small puff of smoke escaping his jaws. He had yet to see this  _dovahkiin_ , but he couldn't blame Alduin for his estimation, based on past experience alone. “But what will that puny human do while he lives? Maybe he and all the other puny humans will decide this world is worth saving.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing while mouldering alone on this mountain? Amassing pearls of wisdom in hopes you might change my mind? Or save me?” Alduin narrowed his eyes at the hint of a smile on his brother’s face. “Save what’s left of your energy, instead. I do not need it.”

Alduin stepped back and sprayed fire in an arc on the ground. He rumbled under his breath. Paarthurnax peered down at his brother out of the corner of one sleepy eye and watched him settle onto warmed earth.  _Curious_. But then again, dragons craved company, and company was in short supply these days.

He forced his eyelids open and waited for Alduin’s next question, whatever it might be. Alduin showed no indication of changing his course, and was, quite frankly, as much of an arrogant ass as he’d ever been. But he had come back, and for a conversation – not a brawl.

It wasn’t much. But compared to the ways Paarthurnax imagined Alduin’s return playing out, he deemed it a halfway decent start.

 

* * *

 

 

Vilkas pulled a semi-clean cloth from the neck of his armor and scrubbed at his brow, trying to catch drops of sweat before they fell into his eyes. No luck. He swore at the sting, earning a snicker from Aela, and backed away from the dead giant cooling on top of the Battle-Borns’ winter leeks.

A cow ambled through the broken fence and mooed just behind his back. Vilkas turned to scratch his scruffy brown head and puzzled over what might drive a giant from the northern herds. Every so often, one lost his way chasing a mammoth up from Secunda’s Kiss, but Vilkas had never seen one wander down from the Pale.

He’d been upset, too – the giant. It was hard to tell; they didn’t have a sweet disposition on a good day, but this one they’d caught running.

_Fleeing_.

Vilkas wasn’t sure about that last, he only had the guards’ word for it. They’d held him at bay with arrows from the watchtower while he and Aela’d run from Jorrvaskr to finish him off. But according to the guards, this northern giant had seemed off-kilter, sort of like a rabid wolf or an angry drunk – veering from side to side and growling, swinging his club at nothing they could see, and lumbering closer and closer to the city wall.

Vilkas wondered if it had anything to do with yesterday’s freak storm. He’d been out before dawn in the training yard and noticed lightning atop the Throat of the World. Thick, white clouds usually hovered around the mountain, but that morning the clouds had turned orange – fiery orange, laced with lightning, and spinning like a whirlwind around the peak. He’d stood and stared before running back inside to fetch someone – anyone – to see it, too. By the time he’d found Aela, stumbling around the kitchens and searching for her breakfast, the storm had passed, the sky dark once more.

Vilkas tried to squash the wave of discontent building in his gut and kicked at the giant’s crusty, bare foot. “Aela, I saw Arcadia grab you in front of her shop – she asked for the toes, didn’t she.” It wasn’t a question. Whiterun’s herbalist knew a good opportunity when she heard one. Or smelled one. The giants’ penchant for mammoth cheese and lack of penchant for bathing amounted to an alarm system all its own.

“Bleagh.” Aela knelt on the grass, gathering arrows and cleaning the heads before sliding them back into her quiver. She pantomimed a gag. “She did indeed, dammit. She said she’d pay very well, and she’s going to have to. I admit there’s something therapeutic about hacking them off, but carrying bloody toes through the street in that string bag she gave us? That’s just disgusting. More to the point, I’m not sure the guards’ll allow it.”

Vilkas noticed an axe in a tree stump near the fence post and stepped that way. “We’ll use that. Not that the Battle-Borns owe us use of their equipment in exchange for protection, buuuut…”

“They kinda do?” Aela skipped past him and grabbed the axe. “I’m ok with it. I’d rather explain to Idolaf why that axe is dull than explain the same to Eorlund. He’s way scarier,” she said, and rolled a log against the giant’s foot before taking a swing. One toe down, nine to go. She could probably make that in four swings. “Hey, have you heard anything else from Farkas? From the sound of his last note, he had no idea when he’d be home.”

“That’s right, I forgot you left on your hunting trip right after the courier did. He sent one more letter, another courier came next day. Turns out, Jarl Skald fired his Imperial guard, replaced them with Stormcloaks. Farkas hired three of them for backup and should have left a few days ago, if that blizzard he mentioned let up,” Vilkas said, and grimaced. Aela’d finished with the first foot, and her bare legs were spattered with blood and bits of bone. “Quite a statement on Skald’s part, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, and grunted, taking her last swing. “Ulfric fucking shit the bed this time. His days have to be numbered, and small numbers, at that.”

“Hmhm…”

Vilkas murmured something Aela could interpret as assent, but privately, he figured the Stormcloaks had the right of it. Not that he was a religious man – Vilkas couldn’t care less which absent character from the fairy stories had a place in whose pantheon, or a shrine at the Temple of the Divines. For the most part, the gods had no bearing on his own life at all. Kyne’s healing power, sure – he witnessed that at work every day. Dibella, too.

In fact, had the Dominion outlawed Dibella’s good works, Ulfric’s little war wouldn’t be necessary at all. Skyrim and the rest of the Empire would rise – Vilkas chuckled to himself – rise against that sort of provocation with extreme prejudice. The Companions might even take sides in that battle.

But Talos? Tiber Septim, Ysmir Wulfharth, Hjalti-Early Beard...whoever he’d been in life, the only thing he’d done for Nords was get them involved in far too many pointless and deadly wars. And as far as Vilkas was concerned, that hadn’t changed. Whether or not he’d ascended or mantled or just died, Vilkas didn’t care enough to fight about it, nor did most of Skyrim, it seemed.

Yet, he couldn’t help thinking his country would be better off without the Empire’s long nose and even longer arm. After all, hadn’t they turned a blind eye to Madanach invading the Reach? King Istlod, too. Just sat in his palace in Solitude and let witchmen rule in Markarth for two bloody years. Ulfric may well have done it for his own purposes, but he took it upon himself to drive the bastards back into the hills, and that counted for something in Vilkas’s book.

No disrespect meant for the dead, but King Torygg seemed cut from the same cloth as his father – gave zero shits for matters affecting folk outside a palace or at the very least, a walled city. Whoever ruled the Forsworn in Madanach’s stead sent streams of horror and evil to harry Falkreath and the Reach. A few of them even terrorized Rorikstead from time to time – Kodlak and his second, Skjor, petitioned Torygg months ago to assist with a rash of child abductions in the area, but were met with excuses, and then silence.

And the Dominion took every opportunity to uphold the bloody, fucking White-Gold Concordat, sending more and more of their goons every day to hunt, torture, and execute Nords. Nords whose only crime was a desire to live as their parents had, and their grandparents. No, regardless what god stood where in the aloof, deaf heavens above or beyond, Skyrim was better off on her own.

Vilkas spied a wheelbarrow by a stile, and rolled it over to Aela and her gruesome handiwork. “Thanks,” Aela said, wiping her own brow with a blood-speckled gauntlet. “Hey, did you see that huge flock of birds this morning? Flying above the clouds? I didn’t see your orange storm yesterday, but could be thundersnow on the way. Birds fly high like that, sometimes, when clouds are warmer than the air below.”

“I did see them,” he said, staring down the northern road and remembering those strange shadow-shapes in the gray, overcast sky. That sliver of unease niggled at his gut again. He turned back to Aela and grabbed a toe, tossing it in the barrow with a wet squelch.“Olava said…”

Aela looked up from the barrow, her brows raised above merry green eyes. “Olava said? You’re listening to Olava now? You know she’ll tell you anything in return for a bottle these days.”

It was true. Olava had a reputation as a seer, and a good one. But she also had a reputation as a connoisseur of firewhisky, and Vilkas seldom saw the old woman wandering the village without a little blue bottle in her hand. “I know, I do,” he said, and tossed in another toe. “And anyway, what she said was impossible. It’s just-“

“I get it, Vilkas,” Aela said, lifting the wheelbarrow’s arms and fixing him with a sympathetic look. “Ulfric’s mess is everyone’s mess. We’re all uneasy, and with so many of the company jumping ship to join the Stormcloaks, it’s a wonder the rest of us aren’t asking Olava if she’s willing to share. Especially you. I know Kodlak’s grooming you to be Skjor’s second after he’s gone. Lots of stress and uncertainty.”

Vilkas heaved a sigh. Kodlak’s eventual retirement or death wasn’t something he wanted to consider. He’d rather think about-

“Olava said it was a dragon,” Vilkas blurted out, staring at the ground. He immediately regretted it. “What flew through the clouds, I mean. Not birds, but a dragon.” He met Aela’s wide eyes and quivering lips and flinched, waiting for the laughter he knew was on the way.

But it never came. Instead, a faint noise echoed from somewhere to the north. Aela groaned. “Not another giant. I swear-“

Vilkas threw up a fist and held his breath. Something about that noise pricked at his spine. A voice? He wasn’t sure, and sprinted through the field to the fence.

He spotted movement on the northern road, and shaded his eyes and squinted in the late-afternoon sun. Whatever it was disappeared behind the horizon. He watched the road for another minute or two, then shrugged and turned to follow Aela toward the gate.

_Probably just a stray dog or a fox._

Vilkas took a breath and steadied himself, and forced his thoughts back to the task at hand – they needed guards to help move the giant away from the wall. Wolves and scavengers were sure to move in after sundown, and no one wanted vermin so close to the city.

Another noise, halfway between a croak and a yell, and Vilkas’s spine tingled again. He turned around and trotted back to the fence. The sun disappeared behind clouds and without the glare, the distant road slowly came into focus.

The road _and_ its occupants. People – not an animal or a giant, but two people, one large and one small. Maybe a man and a child? Vilkas took another step and watched the man list to the side of the road, followed by a high-pitched cry. Not another drunk, he thought, an accusatory glare floating down the road toward the figure pitching this way and that, despite the child’s efforts to keep him standing.

That’s all Whiterun needed. Not even a year ago, a man in a similar situation had approached the gate with his own child – a girl called Lucia. He’d not made it a week in town before he’d absconded with a case of the Bannered Mare’s best whisky, leaving the girl to the mercies of strangers. Luckily, she’d found a home with Amren and Saffir, a nice couple in the village who already had a child of their own. The Companions assisted them with expenses - no one in Whiterun wanted to see any kids from their village go to Honorhall, Whiterun native or no.

Vilkas took another step down the road and narrowed his eyes. He didn’t recognize the child, a slip of a thing with dirty hair, wearing a mud-caked dress. But that man. Something about him seemed so familiar…

The unease in his belly grew cold, freezing and shattering, sending slivers of icy fear through his heart.

“Shit,” Vilkas yelled and threw his sword in the grass. He took off down the road. Aela looked over her shoulder, and let the wheelbarrow rest on the cobblestones. She squinted into the distance, and color drained from her face.

“Oh, shit,” she echoed in a terrified whisper, and ran to catch up with her shield-brother.

Vilkas had no words for what met him on the road. He tried to speak, letting his mouth fall open in hopes a sentence or two would tumble out. Something to help. _Anything_.

“Farkas…”

He finally croaked out a choked whisper, and his throat closed up behind it. Something soft brushed his arm, and he looked to his side to see Aela, her eyes shining with tears. Vilkas had never seen Aela cry. Not once, not even when they’d ripped their wolf spirits from their bodies, killing them at swordpoint inside Ysgramor’s Tomb. But this…

His brother stumbled toward them, naked from the waist up. Black, oozing burn marks covered his chest and arms and face, and his eyes swelled shut. Dark, dried blood caked his tattered leggings and boots. And the smell...he’d never been on the wrong side of a fireball, but he’d been in close quarters with someone who had. He’d never forget it.

“ _Farkas_...”

Farkas lifted one of his hands, a bloody mess of blisters and peeling, blackened skin, and pointed across his body to the child at his side. A little girl, nine or ten by the size of her, clutched Farkas’s other ruined hand in both of hers, swaying and softly keening under her breath. She stared up at Vilkas with wide, blue eyes, blank but for terror and, Vilkas thought, the wispiest of threads connecting her mind with sanity.

_What in Oblivion did she see?_

Vilkas tried a tiny smile, for the girl’s sake, and managed to twitch the corners of his mouth a little before giving up. He swallowed hard. “Gods, Farkas, what happened? Were you in a fire? Is this Ulfberth’s niece?”

Vilkas motioned to the girl and walked behind his brother. Farkas looked dead on his feet, but Vilkas saw no way to support him without hurting him even more. A patch of white caught his eye beneath layers of black skin and oozing blood.

_Holy fuck, is that bone?_

Tears sprang to his eyes, and he shook his head again, hopelessly blank. He looked around, searching for a way to help his brother – wood to make a stretcher, or…or –

Nothing. _Nothing_. His head spun in useless desperation, and he turned to Aela. “Help him, _please_. I don’t…”

She covered her mouth with her hand and scrubbed it down her face, nodding and swallowing what Vilkas assumed was a cry. Or a scream. “The wheelbarrow,” she said, motioning behind them with a thumb and starting to walk backwards down the road. “No, better yet, I’ll get the carriage, and-“

Just then, Farkas’s feet shuffled sideways, toward the road’s grassy shoulder. A ragged breath escaped his white-coated lips, and something that might have been a word. His knees buckled, and he fell, mercifully unconscious on the grass.

The little girl felt his hand fall from hers and her eyes widened even more. She stared at her own empty hands for a moment before throwing her head back and screaming, her blue eyes staring into the darkening, stormy sky.

 


	6. Loathing

“He’s going to live.”

Vilkas flinched at Danica’s voice and tried to conceal it, his back ramrod straight, almost ridiculously so. Why he took such measures, he had no idea. Other than Farkas, they were the only two in the temple, and she’d seen her fair share of family members distraught at the state of their loved ones. He’d not been sure Farkas would last the night – why should he hide that from Kyne’s priestess?

But he should. Vilkas knew he should. A Companion in the Circle, confidant and protégé of Kodlak Whitemane himself, his strength should stand without question, unwavering in the face of danger or tragedy.

Vilkas forced himself to meet Danica’s eyes, soft and gentle in her kind, sympathetic face. Something oily and hot oozed through his belly, and he blinked and looked away, his fists clenching at his sides, his cheeks on fire. He was strong enough at least to confront his true feelings.

Shame. Cringing, flooding shame.

Not for his worries over Farkas, not for wondering whether or not his brother would live or die. No, not that – he was right, that was perfectly normal.

Vilkas yawned, and raised a fist to stifle it. His own fault - he’d barely slept last night. Danica’d offered him one of the spare beds in the temple and he couldn’t complain of lack of comfort, but the thoughts whirling inside his head, accusing and pointing with hard eyes and gnarled fingers, hadn’t let him rest.

_Puling coward. Weakling. Failure._

Not that anyone in Whiterun shared his opinion – their expressions mirrored Danica’s: soft, gentle eyes in kind, sympathetic faces. But they didn’t know the truth, didn’t know what he’d done. The source of his shame. Warrior that he was, protector of Skyrim that he was, he’d frozen, last night outside the gate. Frozen, instead of finding some way to help his brother. And options abounded: get the carriage, get the wheelbarrow.

Get. Fucking. Danica.

Anything would have been preferable to nothing, but no. He’d stood there on the cobblestones, stood and wrung his hands, and begged Aela for help. Farkas burned – literally burned – right in front of him, his skin glowing like embers. Over half his body nothing but char, according to Danica’s assessment. But there he’d stood, and done sweet fuck all.

After Farkas had passed out on the grass, Aela was the one to run to the temple and bring back Danica, a carriage, and a bucketful of potions.

She was quick on her feet, Vilkas thought to himself, bitterness and guilt curving his lips in a sneer, and it might be only due to Aela that Farkas would live at all. She’d also cleared city streets, allowing the carriage driver to speed through the village and the marketplace, stopping only at the steps leading to the Wind District, where they’d carried Farkas, wrapped in layers of linen sheets, up to the temple.

“He shouldn’t, though.”

Danica’s voice broke through Vilkas’s pity party, and he forgot his shame for a moment, turning sharp, blue eyes on the priestess. He’d thought the same thing, but he was no healer and hoped he’d been wrong, that his injuries weren’t as severe as they first thought. “Why do you say that?”

“The burns alone…I’ve never seen anything like it,” Danica said, stepping up to Farkas’s bed to run a hand over his mottled bicep. “Looks like a mixture of flames and steam. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near a Dwemer ruin, and I don’t know what else could do that to a body. And see here?” She lifted his shoulder a couple of inches and pointed to a large welt on its underside. “Places where something stuck and burned, something sticky, like pine sap or tar caught fire and held fast, burning all the while.”

Vilkas shuddered, but didn’t respond.

“I mean, the burns alone should have killed him. But how long did he walk in such a state? The body dehydrates quickly when burned, and how he didn’t die of thirst I’ll never know. Not to mention the stress on his body – his heart should have given out. And his pain…”

She shivered and her voice softened. “I haven’t seen anything near this bad since the Great War.”

Vilkas looked at her with unconcealed surprise, his eyes peering into her unlined face. “The Great War? Pardon my insolence, but you don’t look old enough to have been a healer over thirty years ago.”

Danica smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Vilkas wasn’t sure, but he thought they looked older, suddenly, their tawny depths seeing and reliving things better left in the past. “Kyne‘s blessing,” she said, “works in mysterious ways.”

Vilkas felt a flicker of curiosity kindle to light. The compulsion was almost irresistible – he yearned to pepper Danica with question after question until the whole delicious story came pouring out and he could revel in the knowledge. But he swallowed his questions instead, and turned back to Farkas.

His brother lay unclothed beneath a light linen sheet, sleeping as he’d slept since passing out on the road last night. His eyes weren’t swollen anymore, and despite the red angry marks on his neck and arms, and his shorn hair, he looked like Farkas again. “How long do you think he’ll need to sleep?”

“Another day should do it,” Danica said, resting the back of her hand on her patient’s forehead. “He’ll still have scars, but the tissue damage should heal by then, and the risk of infection will have passed. I’ve alternated healing with potions – stamina potions – to help with blood loss, too. Yes, tomorrow night should do it.”

Vilkas nodded. He needed more information: what happened on the road from Dawnstar, and who (or what) had attacked his brother? Other than the man lying unconscious on a temple bed, only one person in town could help him find out. He turned to leave, giving Farkas one last glance. “I’ll be back soon.”

The morning sun streaming down on the Gildergreen fairly blinded him as he stepped out into the courtyard. He grunted and blinked, swiftly trotting downstairs to the marketplace. For some reason, he thought it’d be cloudy, even though he’d seen the sun rise hours before. The tension coursing through the city had him feeling like a storm was brewing – or maybe it was just him, he didn’t know.

He kept his head down amid merchants and villagers buzzing around him, curious to know how Farkas fared – what was he to say? ‘ _He was burned alive, down to the bone, and might be fine physically, one day, but how do you recover from such a nightmare and not be fucked in the head_ ’ seemed harsh. Vilkas settled with a repeated “he’s on the mend.” That, and a quick half-smile seemed to do the trick.

An axe’s thwack had him flinching again, and he looked sharp in the direction of its sound, up the hill toward the back of Belethor’s shop. Just Sigurd, the shop assistant, chopping firewood, and Vilkas felt shame flood his face once more. _Just a guy chopping firewood, not the end of the world._

“A bit tetchy this morning eh, brave warrior?”

Olava’s voice sounded like gravel grinding under his boots, as usual, but something else in its tone – a touch of mockery, maybe, or mirth – stopped Vilkas in his tracks. He turned his head toward the bench where she sat, little blue bottle in hand. She grinned and took a sip, licking her lips with relish, but whether she enjoyed her whisky or his discomfiture more, Vilkas couldn’t say. Her smile, like Danica’s, didn’t quite reach her ancient eyes. But unlike Danica’s, Olava’s gummy, blackened rictus radiated – he narrowed his eyes and took a step closer – was that...malice?

Vilkas walked on down cobbled streets, tightening his fur-lined cloak against a sudden chill breeze. Whether malice or gum disease, he wasn’t sure, but her cackle at his retreating back had him cringing and striding a little faster. Gods, he needed sleep. _Just a bitter crone enjoying her liquor, not the end of the world._

Warmaiden’s finally came into view, and Vilkas was relieved to see the blacksmith outside her shop. Adrienne sat at her grindstone under the covered patio, a steel sword in her practiced grip. She looked up at his approach and eased her foot off the pedal. “Hey,” she said, resting the sword’s hilt on one knee, “courier came through about an hour ago from Riften, I believe. Red-faced and panting – showed Laila Law-Giver’s insignia and ran straight up to Dragonsreach. He’s not come back down yet.”

Vilkas nodded. Kodlak had ventured up to Dragonsreach earlier that morning for a council meeting – if aught was amiss, he’d let Vilkas know when he returned to Jorrvaskr. But Vilkas knew, already. Between the freak storms and what happened to Farkas, and now one of Skyrim’s unflappable couriers so uncharacteristically … _flapped_? He wasn’t imagining it – that sense of wrongness.

“Thanks,” he said, and leaned against a wooden column, his hands jammed in inner pockets of his cloak. _Eyes on the prey, not the horizon,_ as his brother liked to say. “How’s the girl? Britta?” He wondered, after his words left his lips, if Adrienne was as tired of hearing that question as he was.

“The same,” she said. “Physically fine. Danica found a few places that might be healed burn marks on her neck, but otherwise, fine. Funny, that. If she was in the same fire that injured Farkas…”

Adrienne pushed herself up from the grindstone and set the sword on her workbench. She leaned against an opposing column and met Vilkas’s eyes. “Is Farkas-”

Vilkas let out a ragged breath and knocked his head back against the column. Adrienne huffed. “Yeah, I know you have to be tired of hearing that. But we all saw that carriage speed past and heard Britta screaming, and Danica… He’s yours, Vilkas, but he’s ours, too.”

“I know, I get it. It’s just,” he began, and cleared his throat, digging his boot into the loose dirt floor, “Danica said he shouldn’t be alive. He’ll make a full recovery, but…”

Adrienne gazed at Vilkas, her eyes flicking over his pale face and clenched jaw. “It’s never easy, you know, no matter how much you’ve seen. It’s just...different when it’s someone you love,” she said, and settled back down with the sword she’d been sharpening. “Go on inside. I think Ulfberth’ll let you talk to her. I know you have questions.”

“Thanks.” Vilkas shoved open the door to the shop, but unease stopped him with one boot on the stoop. _Warn her, warn them all_. He turned around. “Adrienne…”

“Yeah?” 

He shook his hair back from his face. Warn them about what, though? Maybe Farkas was right, he did worry too much. “Nothing,” he said, and walked into the shop.

“Hey, man.” Adrienne’s husband, Ulfberth War-Bear, stood at the counter, polishing a steel sword with a soft cloth. “I’m sure you and Ana traded stories and news already,” he said, a grim smile touching his lips, “so I won’t badger you with more questions. Britta’s in the back room.”

Vilkas nodded, relieved. Ulfberth had always been a man of few words. A hunter from Eastmarch, he’d clashed with Adrienne once on the price of pelts for her leathercraft. Adrienne won that fight, Vilkas remembered, for the most part because Ulfberth realized he wanted the woman more than the trade. The rest was history.

“Want to come with?”

“No,” he said, and set the sword down, resting his elbows on the counter. “I’ve been thinking of calling you down anyway. You know the only thing she’s said since we got her home?”

Vilkas shrugged.

“Farkas. That’s it. Just ‘Farkas.’ That’s the answer to any question we’ve asked her. And sometimes she says it…just because.” Ulfberth jerked his chin up toward Vilkas’s face. “You and him are twins, and even though he’s half again your size, there’s a resemblance. Maybe she’ll respond to you. I hope she does. I’ve been holding off sending a courier to Jona until I have something more to tell.”

Vilkas nodded again and walked around the counter to the family’s living area. A warm kitchen and sitting room was lit by a large fireplace and table lanterns. Colorful rugs littered the floor, and Britta sat on one, rocking back and forth on crossed legs.

So much trauma for such a little girl. He wondered, more than a little bitterness creeping through his thoughts, if Jona, Britta’s mother, had seen this coming. Vilkas sat across from her, his ankles tucked under his thighs. “Hey, Britta.”

The girl stopped rocking and looked up. Her eyes brightened for a moment, then fell as she took in his thin face, chestnut hair, and shorter, slighter build.

“No, I’m not Farkas,” Vilkas said, the corners of his mouth twitching in a sad smile. “But he _is_ my brother. And I wanted to let you know he’s doing ok.”

Britta said nothing, and clutched the stuffed bear she held in her lap and continued her rhythmic sway.

“You did a good job getting him back to us, you know? I saw what you did, keeping him upright, keeping him moving. And we – all of us – owe you a debt,” Vilkas said, and paused, watching the girl stare at the floor. Well, he’d known it might take time – his own experience gave him unfortunate insight into childhood trauma.

Thirty-odd years later, and the necromancer’s cage where he and Farkas spent their third or fourth year still hovered at the edge of his thoughts. No one knew how old they were when they went in or came out – Kodlak had guessed as to their ages and even assigned them a birthday, the twenty-sixth of Rain’s Hand. Almost two months away, Vilkas realized, looking up at a calendar hanging over Ulfberth’s desk.

Neither brother remembered how they got there, where their parents were, _who_ their parents were. Even details of their rescue and the aftermath were little more than flashes of memory – bright lights and clanging steel and high-pitched screams. But Kodlak told him later that neither he nor Farkas had spoken for months afterward, their minds likely incapable of processing the hell they’d been through, and that they were safe and sound on the other side.

Vilkas had no way of knowing what Britta had seen or endured, but judging from her current state, it had to have been a bloody, terrifying nightmare. He pushed himself up off the rug. “Just wanted to let you know, and if you want to see him, if you want to see Farkas, tell your uncle and I’ll be right down.”

She stared up at him. He turned to go, but before he’d reached the door, a scuffling sound made him stop and turn back to the girl. Britta stood not two paces behind him, her blue eyes wide. She nodded almost imperceptibly, and Vilkas smiled, the sudden lightness of his heart going a long way toward dispersing that cloying miasma of shame hanging about like a giant’s reek.

It wasn’t much, Vilkas thought, the memory of his brother’s burned and broken body hovering behind his eyes once more, but it was a start.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone reading and commenting - please keep it up if you’re in any way inclined. Discussion helps me write better! :)


	7. Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m finally back from vacation! And now need a vacation from that vacation. Traveling with kids is no joke. I wrote several rough drafts during my time away, so hopefully the next few chapters will be posted relatively quickly. :)

The courtyard’s stark winter sun rendered the temple vestibule dark by comparison, and Vilkas and Britta peered into the shadows, their squinting eyes adjusting to soft, moody light. Vilkas guided the heavy, wooden doors to click shut behind them, and strode around the corner to Farkas’s bed. No change – his brother lay silent and motionless as he had just an hour ago. Vilkas inclined his head to gauge Britta’s response, but the girl wasn’t beside him or even behind him. Instead, she’d stepped into the sunlit temple proper, twirling slowly in the middle of a colorfully-tiled mosaic on the floor.

Maybe she hadn’t seen Farkas yet. Vilkas whistled, the soft burr of his voice echoing in the circular space. “Britta?”

Quick footsteps pattered down the far corridor leading to the priestess’s living quarters, and Danica appeared in the doorway. She stopped and watched the girl stare up at the vaulted ceiling, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open, something perhaps only a child can do while retaining the barest shred of dignity.

Vilkas leaned against a pale wooden column and tried to see Kyne’s temple how Britta did – through fresh, innocent eyes. It _was_ a marvel. Sunbeams streamed through upper story windows and skylights, illuminating blue and yellow stained carvings on the walls. Hanging moss and flowering vines clung to balconies, their delicate perfume adding a bit of sweetness to otherwise clean, fresh air.

He took a deep breath and felt it catch in his chest – an icy-scented breeze wove its way past columns and halls, bedlinens and curtains fluttering in its wake. Like frost skimming northern tundra or the snowy whirlwind at the foot of the Throat of the World, its scent was unmistakable. Vilkas took off his gloves and lay a hand on Farkas’s shoulder. Warm. As was the breeze itself, he realized, turning his hand this way and that in its flow. He shivered, nonetheless, and rolled his eyes.

_Leave it to me to feel a chill in Whiterun’s coziest dwelling._

Britta grinned and pointed up, and Vilkas stepped into the light and followed her direction. He grinned, too – blue and orange butterflies flitted from window to window, lighting on green leaves and horn-shaped flowers, something he’d never noticed in as many times as he’d visited the temple. He listened, and the faintest buzzing noise had him retreating into the shadows. Vilkas wasn’t a fan of bees. But a giggle bubbled joyfully from Britta’s smiling mouth, and she hugged herself, spinning on her toes and only stopping when her gaze fell on Farkas’s bed. Her face grew solemn then, and she padded over to where he lay peaceful and still except for the rise and fall of his chest.

She reached out to brush his forehead and newly-shorn hair with feather-light fingers, her eyes shining. After all she’d been through and seen Farkas through, a few tears weren’t surprising. Vilkas gave her an encouraging nod and a pat on the shoulder and went to stand with Danica.

“So that’s the little girl our Farkas guided across the hold while burned to a crisp, just to see her safely home,” she said, her eyes narrowing a bit, watching Britta speak to Farkas in low, cooing tones. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’m not sure who was guiding who,” Vilkas said, remembering Britta’s supporting hands and encouraging cries leading a dying Farkas down the road to Whiterun. “You still sure he’s going to-“

“Hmm, I can feel his spirit healing. He’s going to be fine,” Danica said, shrugging her shoulders with a merry huff, “and no one’s more surprised about that than I am. Matter of fact, I might be waking him up earlier than planned. I’ll send someone to let you know when I do.”

Britta planted a soft kiss on Farkas’s temple, and Vilkas caught a whiff of that icy breeze swirling through the room once more. He shivered again, and opened his mouth to comment on the strange draft, but Danica’s quiet gasp and stiffened spine stole his words. Instead, he watched the priestess step toward the girl and kneel in the middle of the hawk-shaped mosaic, her hands outstretched. After a moment’s hesitation Britta took Danica’s hands and knelt as well, the two whispering together, awash in streams of light.

_Thick as thieves._

No, more like family, Vilkas corrected, whispering a hasty apology to Kyne – the goddess might not look kindly upon a comparison of her priestess to a petty criminal. He leaned against a column, checking on Farkas again, just in case. Still no change – not that he truly expected it. Danica said she’d have to awaken him from his healing sleep, and she would, in time. But, patience had never been Vilkas’s strong suit. A rustle of fabric and leather squeaking on tile brought his eyes back to the mosaic where Danica and Britta now stood. Vilkas moved to join them.

“Wind guide you, my child,” Danica whispered to Britta, and looked up to the sunny ceiling, her eyes shining not with tears, but with joy.

Vilkas shifted his gaze from Danica to Britta and one corner of his mouth twitched – Britta’s expression was joyful as well. What’s more, she’d regarded Farkas with this same expression just a few minutes ago. He’d believed her eyes sad, shining with unshed tears, but he’d been wrong – peace shone there, and love. Quiet comfort. Well, Farkas did look a sight better now, and so did Britta – no more white face and haunted eyes. Funny that, Vilkas thought, and held himself back from asking what had happened on the road; the girl had been through enough already.

Again, Vilkas wanted to stay and talk with Danica. So many questions lined up in his head – what did she see in Britta, just then? How had she served in the Great War when she looked no older than Vilkas’s own thirty six or seven? Where did those warm, icy breezes come from? But questions could wait. For now, he simply returned her smile and walked Britta outside and back down to the smithy. Ulfberth and Adrienne would be happy to see her back – and whole – and Vilkas thought he could use a bit more happiness before the storm he sensed on the horizon settled in.

 

* * *

 

 

Through thick, foggy sleep, Vilkas heard a door slam and opened his eyes. The candle on the table’d burned down to a stub. He peeled his face from the pages of a book and stared stupidly, trying to remember why he was sitting at Kodlak’s table, with a noisily-snoring Kodlak beside him.

After a moment’s grogginess, it came to him – they’d fallen asleep drinking and talking long into the night, and an anxious night at that. Vilkas returned to Jorrvaskr that afternoon to find Kodlak in a state. Skjor’d taken off to the Reach for a contract, and Jarl Balgruuf had the city guard on high alert – he’d received missives from both Jarls Laila Law-Giver in Riften and Korir in Winterhold. Reports of dragons, of all things. One from the village of Ivarstead and the other from Frostflow, an old lighthouse off the Sea of Ghosts.

The day Farkas had come straggling down the road looking like he’d been kissed by a pyromancer, Aela’d laughed off Olava’s insistence that what flew over Whiterun had been a dragon, and not birds, but even she found this news difficult to dismiss. Two reports of a huge black dragon, and one issued from the foot of the Throat of the World, where Vilkas had seen his freak storm? Vilkas felt no victory in having been right – on the contrary, he’d hoped for a loss.

Earlier that evening, he and Kodlak had ventured down into Jorrvaskr’s dark and dusty sub-basement, looking through storerooms for books or scrolls that might mention dragons. What they found shed no light on the situation: a couple of old scrolls described Akatosh in dragon form, and a book of children’s tales featured a golden dragon and his human lieutenants amassing deadly power in ancient cities. Vilkas assumed they were Skyrim cities, but they could well be Atmoran, as much as anyone knew about the Nords’ ancestral home. Crudely-drawn illustrations accompanied the stories – men wearing terrifying masks fought at the feet of dragons, wielding magical staffs in a war against soldiers and civilians alike.

He and Kodlak perused these documents for hours in hopes some hidden information might pop out and smack them in the face with an answer, but none made itself known. As Kodlak pointed out, even the Temple of the Divines portrayed Akatosh as a dragon – nothing weird about that. And didn’t Martin Septim use some strange magic to banish Mehrunes Dagon during the Oblivion Crisis? If eyewitnesses could be believed, he’d used Akatosh’s mantle to do so. And Vilkas conceded that Nord parents had used dragons to scare their children into good behavior for centuries. No, fairy tales couldn’t be viewed as historical documentation, as _proof_ , that dragons had returned to Skyrim.

But given the jarls’ reports and Farkas’s condition – he’d returned from his Dawnstar contract with burns covering eighty percent of his body, according to Danica – plus, a little girl who looked like she’d seen monsters…well. Vilkas felt he had no choice but to entertain the possibility that fairy tales weren’t just tales, after all.

And just…how was such a thing possible? If the dragon currently roaming Skyrim were real, it stood to reason the dragons and masked men and terrifying wars from the tales might have been real, too. At some point in the past, at least. Exactly how did such events disappear from history so completely?

Footsteps pounded down the hall past the living quarters and grew louder on their way to the Harbinger’s rooms. “He’s awake.” Ria, one of the newest whelps, stood breathless outside Kodlak’s outer door. She whispered, her black eyes darting back and forth between Vilkas and the sleeping Harbinger. “Danica sent word. Farkas is awake.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, _there_ he is!” Vilkas ran through the temple, skidding to a stop next to his brother’s bed, where Farkas sat upright, scratching idly at a burn mark on his bicep. Danica slapped his hand away, and Vilkas hugged his brother, pulling him from side to side, astonished at the relief he felt coursing through his body. He thought he’d believed Danica when she promised Farkas would be fine, but he should have known better. Vilkas seldom believed anything until he saw it with his own eyes. And now that he did, he felt his body unclench for the first time in days.

“Alright.” Vilkas’s shoulder muffled Farkas’s voice. He pulled back and peered at angry, red splotches still covering the bulk of Farkas’s skin. Farkas snorted. “Worried about me, were you brother?”

Danica crossed her arms over her chest and tapped one foot on the floor. “You’re awake more than twelve hours before I expected, and several days before any normal man would be,” she said, her stern, warning look softening at the unexpected alarm shadowing Farkas’s eyes. “You’re to take it easy the next few days, Companion. You should be dead.”

Farkas nodded. “How long was I out?”

“Almost two days,” Danica said. “Like I said, anyone else –“

“I know, I know,” Farkas said, his face tightening in an expression Vilkas recognized as fear. Vilkas wasn’t sure what prompted it, but if his suspicions about what attacked Farkas were correct, they all still had quite a bit to fear.

Farkas ran his hand over his shorn hair – barely two inches remained; most of his shoulder-length black waves had burned before he made it to Whiterun. Sergio Pelagius neatened it up with his sheep shears while Farkas slept. “Feels weird. I must look like a legionnaire with this haircut,” he said, and swore under his breath, his jaw clenching.

Vilkas barked out a short laugh. Of all things, Farkas was upset about his haircut? “It’s not so bad, and hair grows, after all,” he said. His smile faded, and he leaned against the bed. “Farkas, what hap–“

“How’s the girl?” Farkas spoke over Vilkas, his eyes boring into Vilkas’s own, his brows raised slightly. He gave his head a tiny shake. “Britta. I know she was here, earlier. She ok?”

Danica huffed. “How did you know she was here? You were asleep.”

“Heard her. She talked to me. Is she ok? That healing potion should have-“

“No. _No_ ,” Danica repeated, faint pink splotches rising on her cheeks, “that’s impossible-“

“Wait.” Vilkas spoke over Danica this time, his hand gently clenching her forearm. Farkas _was_ scared, or at least agitated, and it seemed to have something to do with Danica’s repeated insistence that he was somehow abnormal or unusual. At this rate, Farkas might shut down before he explained what attacked them, and given the day’s reports, Vilkas couldn’t let that happen. “Could you start at the beginning? Was Britta hurt? Like you? And who did it?”

Farkas pressed his lips together and stared at his hands, folded in his lap atop the thin, linen coverlet.

“Are you cold?” Danica opened a drawer in a dresser next to his bed and pulled out a blanket. “Do you need-“

“No, I’m fine,” Farkas said, but took the blanket anyway, holding its furry, folded bulk against his chest. He didn’t answer the question, and Vilkas knew why – Farkas never liked to be a bother. The mere fact he’d spent two days on a temple bed had to be chafing him to no end. And he hated being a bearer of bad news.

His brother looked up, and Vilkas’s eyes crinkled at the anguish in Farkas’s own. That, more than his own intuition, more than Balgruuf’s reports, sank Vilkas’s stomach and had his heart pounding in his chest. It was true, then – the world was changing before their eyes, and Farkas found himself at the forefront. Not that he had any choice in the matter, not this time.

Vilkas sighed and hopped up on the edge of the bed, near Farkas’s feet. “No matter, I can tell you what happened, brother. I can guess part of it, at least. Couriers from Riften and Winterhold showed up yesterday. Dragon sightings.” Both brothers winced at Danica’s gasp – she’d not heard the rumors, apparently. “And that sounds crazy, I know, because dragons aren’t _real_ ,” Vilkas said and laughed – a hollow, desperate sound. “I _know_ they’re not. But two sightings in as many days –“

“It’s true,” Farkas said, his voice barely a whisper. He coughed, and Danica stood in shock for a moment before fetching a cup of water. Vilkas found it oddly comforting that, when confronted with such an ugly, terrifying truth, even a serene priestess of Kyne found herself off her guard.

Farkas sipped at the water, and set the cup on a table by the bed. He scratched at a scar encircling his neck, the corners of his mouth twitching at Danica’s whispered “ _stop_ ,” and leaned back against his headboard. “What did the dragon look like, the one that’s been seen?”

Vilkas glanced between Danica and Farkas. “Huge and black. Red eyes. No one’s been hurt so far, it’s…”

“There’s been enough hurt for a lifetime, I’d say,” Farkas muttered, resting his chin on the blanket. He sniffed. “We were just past the Weynon Stones, about to turn south, and um, I saw it swoop down from the clouds, just like in the stories. Black, red eyes. Wings the size of…mammoths, I don’t know. But it burned all three of my guard - you know, the legionnaires I hired back in Dawnstar-“

He broke off and scrubbed his face with his hands, and Vilkas swallowed hard. Farkas hadn’t been upset because of his haircut after all, but about the joke he made before he’d remembered, and over the soldiers he’d seen die before his eyes.

“I mean, there they were, riding for the stones in the snow, and the thing shot fire from its jaws and…they were gone. Nothing left. And it did the same with me and Britta, more or less. Except, you know…we survived.”

“ _How_?” Vilkas croaked, his voice barely a whisper. Farkas sat right in front of him, alive and mostly well, but Vilkas couldn’t imagine how. And he had to admit, part of him still expected the story to end with his brother nothing but ash, just like his guards. He shuddered, and gripped Farkas’s shin through the linen sheet. _He’s real. He’s alive._

“I made Britta drink a healing potion – one of the expensive ones. She’d gotten it from her pack for me, before...”

Danica handed him the cup again, and he brought it to his lips, but didn’t drink. “You know what? I’m not going into it. I don’t want to yet, and if you don’t understand that…well,” he said, setting the cup back down on the table, “you’ll have to get used to disappointment. Yeah, there’s a dragon. It lit us up, and it flew away.”

 _But not before it spoke to me._ Farkas pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, the dragon’s low, guttural laugh echoing in his ears. And the words. He hadn’t understood anything the dragon said, but the images that ruddy gibberish brought to life in his mind – men in horned masks conjuring thunder and lightning from the skies, bloody war, dragons spraying fire and ice over a desolate land – terrified Farkas as much as the dragon itself. He just couldn’t put a finger on _why_.

Vilkas shrugged, and got to his feet. It seemed his lot in life to be denied answers to life’s pressing questions, these days. “Fine. I get it. Important thing is you can corroborate the reports. Balgruuf’s thanes and engineers might not hop-to for tales from the backwater.”

“No, you moron, the _important thing_ is that he’s alive.” Danica cuffed Vilkas on the shoulder before turning her attention back to Farkas. “I’ve never seen someone heal as fast as you,” she said, circling his bed, her hands soft and capable as they slid just over the surface of his skin. “You might be Kyne-blessed, as well.”

“As well as what?”

Danica shifted her gaze between the brothers. “As well as the girl,” she admitted. “Britta. She has…talent.”

“You mean magic,” Farkas said, frowning at Danica, his brows lowered in disapproval.

“Wait just a minute,” Danica said, planting her hands firmly on her hips. “What do you think healed you, sunshine and kisses?” She smirked at Farkas’s widened eyes. “You should be so lucky. Look, I’m not talking about college magic, although there’s nothing really wrong with that, either. But healing is a gift from Kyne, and I’m surprised any Nord has a reservation about receiving it.”

Farkas at least had the good grace to look sheepish. “Sorry. I’m…” he rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand and flinched at the still-healing weals. “Just…what did you mean earlier? That I shouldn’t have heard Britta, before.”

“I’d put you under an enchanted sleep, so your body could heal without stress,” she said, her color rising with Farkas’s second glower. “You know, Kyne gives other gifts, along with healing. Warrior goddess, remember? Never forget who she is. And anyway, you almost died. Do I really have to say that again? You. Almost. Died.”

After a few deep breaths, and some muttering that Vilkas suspected might be less than priestess-like, Danica calmed down and addressed the original question. “To my knowledge, someone under that spell can’t hear what’s going on outside their own heads.”

“And,” Farkas said, staring at his hands again, “you said I woke up earlier than you expected. Did you lift the spell or did I just…wake up?”

Danica gave him a quizzical look and reached for the linen privacy curtain, noticing Vilkas pull a change of clothing from a leather satchel. “I lifted the spell. You have a problem with that, too, or would you rather go back to sleep?”

Vilkas noticed Farkas’s relief – his flushed cheeks and heavy exhale – and filed it away. Farkas was upset about something, and it wasn’t the injuries, nor even the dragon itself, not really. His questions about the spell and visible agitation at Danica’s insistence that he’d not healed normally pointed to something magical, but Vilkas knew Farkas didn’t dabble in magic of any kind. He stepped away to let his brother dress in a linen tunic and cotton leggings, and wondered what else it could be.

 


	8. Persuasion

“There’s your brother. Does that mean it’s time to go?” Britta squinted at the stairs leading down to the village and huffed. She’d done what her uncle had asked and waited one full day after Farkas left the temple to ambush him outside Jorrvaskr, and wasn’t at all pleased he had to meet with the jarl at Dragonsreach that afternoon. Farkas was okay with it – not that he hadn’t wanted to check on Britta himself, and not that he didn’t feel a certain kinship to the little girl after their fiery, near-death encounter – far from it.

He was just a little tired of sitting right smack in the center of attention. He’d walked Britta down to the Gildergreen, to sit and chat on one of the benches while Vilkas trekked down to Warmaiden’s to explain where Britta’d run off to. The purple and pink-flowered tree was beautiful and peaceful as always, but not a minute or two passed when a (rightly) concerned citizen didn’t walk by and either pat him on the shoulder or give him an overly-encouraging smile. Farkas appreciated the support, he really did, but crowds of people – even nice, friendly people – put him on edge. Especially since he kept imagining all those people hemmed in by city walls and dragon fire, their smiles melting to silent screams and then – nothing at all.

There had to be a way to stop it.

Farkas took a deep breath and unclenched his fists, smoothing out crescent-moon indentations in his palms. “That’s what it means,” he said, ruffling her silver-blonde curls. “And here’s your uncle too, and he doesn’t even look mad. Not that you need to do something like that again, mind. Remember, you three are coming up for dinner tonight, so I’ll see you then.”

Britta pouted a little, and Farkas stood and stretched, a small smile sneaking across his lips. “And I suppose...I _could_ talk to your uncle about you spending more time at Jorrvaskr. Aela could teach you how to shoot. That’d be all right, yeah?”

She nodded and smiled, but a smile that faded too quickly. “It’s not so bad, is it?” Farkas moved to block Ulfberth’s view. Britta deserved a chance to speak plainly, if there were problems at her new home. “At least you still have all your hair.”

The joke fell flat, and it was Farkas’s turn to frown. He’d expected at least a chuckle, but Britta only shrugged and picked at green and pink threads on her blue embroidered tunic. “No, it’s fine. Uncle Ulfberth’s nice, and Aunt Adrienne. I just…”

“Hmm?”

“I’m scared, Farkas. That dragon – what if it comes back?”

Farkas squatted down in front of her, his dark blue eyes level with her pale ones. “I’m a little scared too,” Farkas said, wondering if he did the right thing in admitting it. Kids needed assurance that grown-ups believed they were safe, he knew that. But kids weren’t stupid either, and he thought Britta might know if he lied – only a damn fool faced a dragon and came away unafraid. “But that’s why me and Vilkas are talking to the jarl. To figure out a way to protect everyone from that dragon.”

“Well, you protected me.” She did smile, then, under fearful but sympathetic eyes. “But I just…I don’t see how anything can protect all of us. There’s not a shield big enough for the whole town.”

“But it’s not just me at the meeting, right? The jarl’s guard captain’s going to be there, and engineers – guys who built the city, yeah? They oughta know something can help. I have to believe there’s always a way. Even if we can’t see it yet,” Farkas said, scooping up fallen, but still sweet-smelling rosy blossoms. He stood and dropped them into Britta’s cupped hands. “And I’ll see you tonight, ok?”

“Ok,” Britta said, and slid off the bench. She plodded to the stairs to meet Ulfberth, and Farkas and Vilkas took off in the other direction up to the soaring palace of Dragonsreach, its wooden arches and towers glowing honey-gold in the afternoon sun. The seat of Whiterun Hold, Dragonsreach was built in the old, Nordic style – built to impress, and that it did. High on a hill in the middle of the city, the first thing any visitor glimpsed as he cleared the southern forests or descended the northern hills was its grandeur, a monument to glories of Nords of old, and the heart of modern Skyrim.

But all Farkas saw, just now, was a glorified funeral pyre. “Kid’s got a point, you know,” he said, looking at Vilkas out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe what got me’s heading off past the Sea of Ghosts, maybe it won’t come back. But if it does? I don’t know of a way to stop it, to kill it.”

Vilkas pressed his lips together and touched the hilt of his sword with one hand. Like Farkas, he found the cool steel reassuring. “Me neither.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time the twins arrived, most of Whiterun’s high muckety-mucks ranged about the long table in the great hall, chattering over tankards of the jarl’s best mead and stoneware plates of warm bread and fresh fruit. Balgruuf’s brother, Hrongar, waved them over, tilting his tankard a little too far and splashing mead into the firepit. Hissing coals and Hrongar’s own merry shout muffled Vilkas’s snicker.

“Does he even know why he’s here?” Vilkas pulled out two chairs near the foot of the table and sat down.

Farkas took the other chair and grimaced. Hrongar refilled his tankard, failing to notice Balgruuf’s expression of disgust at the mead dripping down the front of his tunic. “Shit, I don’t even know why he’s here. You know, every time I’m forced to be in a room with that idiot, it hurts more and more when you call me ‘ice-brain.’”

“ _Aela_ calls you ‘ice-brain,’” Vilkas said, bumping Farkas’s shoulder with his own. “I can’t tell you what she calls Hrongar, though.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Vilkas said, lowering his voice to a whisper as Balgruuf stood to address the council, “you won’t be able to stop laughing and we’ll get kicked out. Remind me later.”

Farkas chuckled and turned his attention to the head of the table. Kodlak sat at the jarl’s left hand, while Irileth, housecarl and captain of the guard, claimed his right. Irileth hadn’t said much yet, just stared around the table with dark-red gimlet eyes, quietly assessing the crowd. Farkas had a feeling she didn’t miss much, and made a vow to himself to stay far away from her bad side.

The other chairs were filled by thanes from Riverwood and Rorikstead, the palace steward, several engineers, and Jarl Balgruuf’s mage – his _Nord_ mage. Farkas couldn’t help but feel surprise and unease around a Nord who willingly practiced magic. And not just the sort of thing Danica used (and try as he might to remember Danica called it Kyne’s gift, it still gave Farkas the shivers), but college magic.

Plainly put, the College of Winterhold couldn’t be trusted, and he had a hard time understanding why a Nord like Balgruuf put his trust in a man like Farengar Secret-Fire. Farkas’s contempt must have been palpable across the table, for Farengar looked up, his brown eyes boring into Farkas’s blue ones. Farkas held his gaze.

_It’ll take more than a cold stare to scare me, wizard._

“Ah, brother?”

Farkas twitched at his brother’s voice and the nudge at his elbow. Had he knocked something over, or taken someone’s seat? No other reason for anyone to address him at the jarl’s table. “Yeah? Um, yes?”

Vilkas pursed his lips underneath raised brows, prompting Farkas to peek around the table. Everyone else watched him, as though waiting for him to perform like some sort of trained horker. _Fuck_. So much for mages cowering under the fiery force of his glare, he thought, a pink flush rising under his stubble. “I, ah, I’m sorry. Did I miss something?”

Kodlak chuckled under his breath. “A little inattention is to be expected after your ordeal, my boy. But we do need your help, now. You’re the only one who’s seen this beast with your own eyes. Tell us,” he said, gesturing around the table with an open hand, “what this means for Whiterun.”

Farkas huffed a little and scowled. He’d already described the attack to Kodlak and Vilkas in gruesome detail, back at Jorrvaskr – excepting the dragon’s laughter and strange speech, of course. That, he wasn’t ready to share with anyone. And he knew Kodlak briefed the jarl. But if his boss wanted him to talk…

“Well,” he began, and cleared his throat, pausing to pour mead from a stoneware pitcher into his pewter tankard. He wasn’t sure where to start, or how to describe the city everyone loved – their home, for the gods’ sakes – as little more than a bonfire waiting to happen. “If the monster they saw in Ivarstead and Winterhold is the same dragon who attacked us, he’s big. Way taller than our walls, but, ah…I guess that doesn’t really matter.”

“Why not?” An anxious city engineer leaned his way, her lacquered fingernails gripping the table’s edge.

Farkas tipped his tankard and swallowed a warm mouthful of mead, scratching at the nape of his neck. _Damn short hair._ “Well, um…dragons fly and breath fire, don’t they?”

Hrongar scoffed, reaching over to grab a bunch of grapes. “Everybody knows dragons ain’t real,” he said, popping several in his mouth. He laughed, a sort of braying cackle, and sprayed the table in front of him with purple juice. “Ivarstead‘s boring. Living at a lighthouse is, too. Trumped-up tales and moon sugar explains it all. End of story. We should be talking about what Ulfric gone and done. Taking the fight to the Stormcloaks. You know, real problems for real men, not fucking fairy tales, eh?”

Irileth let out an impatient sigh and glared at the thanes, who were nodding and muttering in agreement. “Our Companions are neither fanciful nor prone to indulgence, Hrongar,” she said, rolling her eyes and lifting her chin toward Farkas. “So, if you would continue...”

“Haven’t you all read the report? Or at least heard it?” Farkas panned his gaze around the table. Disbelief rose from the council in nearly tangible waves. Balgruuf trusted Kodlak, and he wasn’t an idiot like his brother. Surely he’d warned his thanes and engineers, and _surely_ …

“They have. But they need to hear it from you,” Balgruuf said, exchanging a wry glance with Kodlak.

Farkas examined the council members more closely. Proventus, the jarl’s steward, stared right through him with blank, heavy-lidded eyes, a polite smile fixed on his narrow lips. At least Thane Rorik tried to conceal his mocking smirk behind a tankard of mead. If they didn’t believe Kodlak, Harbinger of the Companions, they’d hardly believe the words of one of his underlings. But, Farkas thought, staring into his own tankard, maybe he didn’t have to say anything at all.

He pushed back his chair and unbuckled his weapons belt, slamming it next to his tankard with more force than he’d planned. Murmurs rounded the table, but Farkas ignored them, peering down at Vilkas. One corner of his brother’s mouth twitched up, and Farkas shrugged. They wanted proof, he’d give it to them.

In one swift movement, ignoring the throbbing pain of still-healing muscles and ligaments, he yanked his tunic over his head.

Amid gasps and high-pitched shrieks of protest, Vilkas leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, settling in for the show. Reasons for Farkas to take his clothes off in public seemed to pop up like weeds these days.

“See this?” Farkas pointed to a ring of weals around his neck, still puffy and fiery red. “And this?” He turned around, displaying a leaf-shaped splotch covering half his back and disappearing down the waistband of his leggings, and jerked his thumb near a long scab across his ribs. “Vilkas said there was bone poking out when I showed up on the road, what was that now, two nights ago? Three? Ask the priestess what I looked like when she found me, passed out near the gates – if you find Kyne’s priestess trustworthy, that is.”

He slowly spun around and raised his arms, muscles rippling under red blotches and scabs and slowly-hardening scars. He took a deep breath, and tried to ignore how the walls of the palace seemed to close in around him. “I see your questions, I do. Yeah, I wore armor. Carved Nordic steel, forged by Eorlund himself. Good stuff. Most of it’s lying in lumps by the roadside, back in the Pale. As you read in Kodlak’s report, it didn’t matter, though. The dragon breathed fire and turned snow and dirt covering me and Ulfberth’s niece to steam and boiling mud.” He motioned to his neck and under his arms. “Poured in through the openings and got trapped in there,” Farkas said, and snorted. “Hurt like a sonofabitch.”

“Pity you can’t ask my guard if I’m telling the truth. The dragon – because that’s what it was – “

Something like a groan distracted him, and he turned toward its source. One of the engineers crouched in his chair like he wanted to jump up and run from the building. Proventus looked a little green under his olive skin, and his mouth hung open behind splayed fingers. Farkas huffed, remembering his own disbelief, his own denial in the face of the demon itself, and softened his voice the least little bit.

“The dragon must have used something hotter on them. Nothing left by the time he was done. Three armored soldiers and their mounts, just…ash. And when it landed, the ground shook and trees fell, like they were pulled from the dirt, roots and all.”

“It could knock down our walls,” Farkas said, his gaze snapping toward the engineers, “it could. But it doesn’t have to, because Whiterun’s made of wood. And thatch. And dragons can fly and breathe fire.”

He hated to be the bearer of bad news, but there it was, and ignoring it would get them nowhere. In the resulting silence, Farkas shrugged back into his tunic and buckled the weapons belt around his hips. He reached for his tankard and knocked back the whole thing in one gulp before sitting down.

Farkas counted _one, two, three_ , and bedlam broke out. Balgruuf called for silence above the din, and glared across the table, fixing his engineers and Proventus with a good, long stare. “Are you satisfied? All of you?” He waited for Proventus to tip his head in a quick, clipped nod before continuing. “Now. I’m sending copies of Kodlak Whitemane‘s report, including a detailed rundown of his lieutenant’s experience, to every hold. It’ll be up to Elisif and Tullius to tell the remainder of the Empire,” the jarl said, and motioned to his mage. “Farengar Secret-Fire has more to report.”

Farengar sipped from his chalice and glanced at Farkas before standing to address the table. His gaze had Farkas fidgeting in his seat, and he eyed the jeweled cup, wondering whether the mage drank ale or wine or some Oblivion-cursed potion.

“I’ve spent the past two days – and nights – in the basements, digging through old texts and locked chests. There’s not much there referencing dragons, but I pulled everything. Even old fairy tales, because as we know,” he said, nodding toward Farkas, “dragons aren’t fairy tales anymore. I didn’t find anything about why they’re here or how to stop them –“

He broke off amid another cacophony of murmurs and expletives.

“If you didn’t find anything, why are we here?”

Farengar fixed the engineer who’d interrupted with a withering look, and Balgruuf echoed it. The engineer settled back in his seat, his face flushed. “If I may continue?” Farengar paused, and Farkas frowned, again finding himself troubled by the trust Balgruuf placed in the man. How did he know the mage wouldn’t take the dragon’s side? Wouldn’t be the first time a magic-user chose power over principle. Or loyalty.

“I did find an old book with a clue where we might find more information,” Farengar said. “On the inside cover, there was a map, and when I compared it with current maps of Skyrim, I noticed markings coinciding with the locations of old Nordic barrows – Dustman’s Cairn, Folgunthur, even Labyrinthian. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised Labyrinthian could harbor secrets of dragons, its mysteries are legion. Shalidor himself –“

Balgruuf cleared his throat, and Farengar broke from his impending ramble. “Right…where was I? Ah, yes. The rest of the book is badly damaged, but from what I could decipher, it made claims that the barrows were connected to dragons. In some fashion.”

“I’m sorry,” Proventus said, shaking his head dismissively, “but those barrows are merely crude resting places for ancient kings of old. From Atmora. What light could they shed on…on dragons?”

“First of all, they’re anything but crude,” Farengar retorted, his voice laced with ice. “I admit to being less adventurous than the average man, but I invite you to step through one, sometime. You’ll eat your own words. Our monuments to the ancients still stand, many of them in better condition than Dwemer cities, so…have some respect.”

Farkas sat up a little straighter, surprised at the reverence in Farengar’s tone, and listened more attentively as the mage continued. “Second, ancient Nords worshipped a pantheon that included a dragon at its head. Wolves, foxes, whales…they’re all real beasts. Snakes… _real_. So, maybe they knew something about dragons we don’t,” Farengar said, and inclined his head toward Balgruuf. “We _have_ considered the possibility it’s merely a reference to Akatosh – the Lord of Time, represented as a dragon. It’s been done before.”

“And maybe that’s all there is to it,” Balgruuf said, and leaned back in his chair, tracing his jeweled torc with lazy fingers. “But if there’s the smallest chance something in one of these barrows might point to a way to defend ourselves from dragons, or tell us why they’re here, we owe it to Skyrim to see it through.” He turned to Kodlak. “Can we depend on your Companions?”

“You can,” Kodlak said, and Farkas nodded in agreement. “Just tell us what we need to do.”

“I’ve been through some of those barrows,” Vilkas said, and set the empty tankard he’d been twirling on one finger down on the table. “You need a special key to get through most of them, at least to their inner chambers. Heavy stone doors with unpickable locks.”

“Yes, I’ve seen such as well,” Farengar agreed, picking at the nails of his right hand. Farkas noticed both sets of nails were ragged, bitten to the quick, and the mage’s eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed, his robes rumpled and covered in dust. He hadn’t been lying about the search, and his sleepless nights. “But at the time, you didn’t have this specific goal in mind. Maybe you’ll find something useful in an outer compartment. We need anything we can scavenge right now. Whatever you can manage…”

Vilkas glanced at Farkas. He shrugged and nodded again, trying not to appear too eager. Getting out of the city sounded like a plan. “Where do we start?”

Farengar let out a heavy sigh and pushed a marked map across the table. A smile of relief relaxed the taut lines of his face somewhat, and Farkas’s brow twitched in surprise – the mage wasn’t nearly as old as he’d looked a few minutes ago. “Bleak Falls Barrow, just northwest of Riverwood. That’s the closest one. Seems as good a place to start as any.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some days I’m worried about sounding too poetic, some days I’m just looking for excuses for Farkas to take his clothes off. It’s about balance, people. ;)


	9. Alteration

Kodlak wasted no time bustling the twins off to Bleak Falls Barrow, and with only a few short hours to prepare, it proved a daunting task. Farkas worked with Eorlund to get new armor fitted and find a new weapon. And Vilkas – over Farkas’s halfhearted objections – scrounged a satchelful of potions from Arcadia and even a few scrolls from Farengar, just in case they met up with something their weapons couldn’t best.

They planned to leave Whiterun before the sun rose the next morning. Jarl Balgruuf warned the council to keep what they’d heard and seen in Dragonreach’s great room to themselves, but he knew the rumor mill would turn, regardless. Too many people in Skyrim had either seen the dragon or knew someone who had, and it wouldn’t be long before worried villagers started to panic. Balgruuf wanted at least a few answers before that happened.

With that sobering thought in mind, Farkas and Vilkas tumbled out of bed hours before dawn, and found themselves veering west from the White River and heading up the slushy mountain path south of the town of Riverwood by mid-morning.

“Better keep your sword handy,” Vilkas said, nudging Farkas and slipping an arrow from his quiver. “Athis saw bandits on the path last week, on his way back from Riverwood.”

“What was Athis doing in Riverwood?”

“Contract. Tanner kept finding wolves sneaking around his drying racks.” Vilkas watched Farkas pull an ebony sword and equip a matching shield. “New sword, eh? Different.”

Farkas gave it a swishy swing. He’d lost his greatsword back in the Pale, and thought a one-handed weapon might be more useful in the current climate. Not to mention its companion. “Balance is good,” he grumbled, watching the cresting sun glint off its wicked edge. “Thought I’d get a little better with my shield. Dragonfire and all. So, Athis?”

Vilkas shrugged – his giant of a brother made that blade look more like a parrying dagger, but he wasn’t about judge the relationship between a man and his sword. “He and the tanner tracked the wolves back to their den, but didn’t have the heart to kill them all. Too many cubs, he said. So he helped build a high plank fence, instead, with a good, strong lock. Everyone wins.”

“Until summer, when the cubs aren’t cubs anymore,” Farkas said. Beasts would be beasts after all, and Farkas understood their needs better than the average man, having been a werewolf until the spring prior. “But I suppose that’s more work for us, eventually.”

“Njada said the same thing, with a little more cursing. And punches,” Vilkas said, grinning with a wry shake of his head. “Of course, everyone knows what’s really going on, there. Everyone but her and Athis, that is.”

Conversation lulled while they rounded the next bend. No bandits yet. Farkas grunted and pulled at a loose buckle on his shield. “Yeah. It’s got to be tough on them both, especially with her coming from a family of Stormcloaks. I was a little surprised to see her still at Jorrvaskr, after Ulfric-”

“I asked her right after we got the news if she was leaving – we had to know what we were facing, right? She looked at me like I’d called her a troll. But have you ever heard her talk about her family?”

“Never.”

“That’s right. I had no idea it was a sore spot. But, turns out, she hates Windhelm and has no intention of going back,” Vilkas said. “You should have seen the look on his face – Athis, I mean. I think he might have braved Ulfric’s wrath and joined up himself had she actually gone.”

Farkas chuffed under his breath. Athis and Njada’d joined the Companions a few years back. Athis didn’t talk much about his past either, only that he’d narrowly escaped the ashlands of Vvardenfell and didn’t want to relive it. He’d passed through Windhelm on his journey, glad to see the back of it and thankful he had a way out. Too many Dunmer who’d settled in Skyrim after the Red Mountain erupted in Morrowind weren’t so lucky.

Vilkas stopped in his tracks and held up a fist, motioning with his bow to the rise of the next bend. The tiptop of a crumbling lookout tower peeked out over its apex. Farkas closed his eyes and listened. Times like these, he missed the beastblood – hearing and smelling danger a mile away had its uses. Not worth the uncontrollable rage or constant exhaustion or knowing that his soul wasn’t his own – but helpful. And unnecessary this time: a loud, drunken guffaw rang out from the ruined cupola, and Farkas inched over to let Vilkas pass, his back flat against the cliff wall and his bow drawn.

Aside from Aela, Vilkas was the Companions’ best archer and rarely missed a shot, so Farkas wasn’t surprised to hear three thuds in less than a minute, and Vilkas’s whistle signaling the all-clear. They finally rounded the last bend up to the barrow, and Vilkas nudged him again. “Look at that. What do you see?”

Farkas looked up just as the sun peeked from behind a passing cloud, its dazzling beams glaring off the snowy mountains. “Fuck,” he swore, pressing the heels of his hands against closed eyelids. When the shadows and burned-in images faded away, he glanced back up, shading his eyes this time. Towering arches and buttresses crowned the steep pathway up the cliffside, and snow-capped animal sculptures crowned the arches.

The stone had eroded just enough to blur their aspects, but Farkas assumed they were part of the ancient Nord pantheon – hawks, eagles, wolves…maybe even dragons. A shiver flickered up his spine. Anticipation or fear, one, he wasn’t sure which. But he could find answers here, he knew it.

He _needed_ answers.

“I see it,” he said, his fist clenching around the hilt of his sword. “Looks like Dragonsreach to me, just stone instead of wood.”

“Yeah,” Vilkas said. “Spot on.” Farkas sprinted up the first set of stairs and took out a bandit who rushed them from behind one of the arches. Vilkas drew his bow and took out two more on the next staircase. “Why have we never been up here before, anyway?”

Farkas shrugged. “No one paid us, I guess.”

“Makes sense,” Vilkas said, and wrenched open the door.

 

* * *

 

  
After clearing a bandit lair out of several large chambers, they’d taken their time searching every urn and chest, but found nothing of use – no scrolls, texts, or carvings. Not even passable loot. Vilkas kept reminding himself that sweet, sweet gold wasn’t what they’d come for, anyway. They’d even opened a few coffins before the dust became insufferable, clinging to their skin and hair and coating their throats with dry, powdery death. They’d drained nearly half a waterskin by the time the small anteroom containing a puzzle, one dead bandit, and not much else came into view.

“You know,” Vilkas said, pulling a lever on top of a stone plinth and opening the barred gate to an inner chamber, “I figured the Ancients’ security measures would be a little more…challenging.”

Farkas surveyed the room. He had to agree with his brother. It didn’t take much intellect to match animal sculptures on revolving pillars downstairs to tablets on the second-story ledge. One had even fallen to the ground, crumbling with age, but it still looked like a snake to him. “Well, that guy would disagree,” he said, nodding toward the dead bandit lying between the plinth and the gate. “But maybe you don’t have to have much. Maybe whoever gets in just needs to be able to think. Like a human. Or elf, or Khajiit. You know...”

“Sentient. Yeah, you might be right,” Vilkas said, and headed through the door, decapitating a lone, shambling draugr on the way down a dark corridor. He lit a torch and lifted it up and around, illuminating coffins lining stone walls and biers piled with burial urns. “Not too many things to kill in here, we might have gotten lucky.”

“Wait,” Farkas said, and pointed to a wispy mass of webbing covering an archway. “Why’d you have to say that? You know it’s bad luck, and now look. Damn spiders.”

“Sorry,” Vilkas said, and paused, tilting his head to the side. “Did you hear something?”

Farkas frowned and tried to ignore what awaited them in the next room. Nothing much got under his skin, but he had to admit frostbites were on that very short list. Hairy, jumping bastards. All those eyes. Disgusting.

But above the sound of his skin crawling, he heard what had his brother on alert – someone groaned behind the wall. He nodded, and Vilkas sheathed his sword and nocked an arrow to his bow.

The groan turned into a wail, and then a scream. “Help! Help me! I’m in here…help!”

“That idiot’s going to wake up every draugr in Skyrim,” Farkas growled. “That sort of stupidity deserves to get eaten by spiders.”

“Someone! Anyone, _please_!”

“Aw, have a heart, big guy,” Vilkas said, creeping around the doorway. A giant frostbite spider dangled from a thick thread of silk, its forelegs and fangs twitching toward a white lump on the far wall. Three arrows later, the monster curled up and fell with a soft thud onto the stone floor, scattering bones and desiccated bodies in its wake. Vilkas lowered his bow. “Ok, let’s go help the moron.”

They crossed the room, carefully avoiding a few grates on the floor – obvious trapdoors – and stepping over swaths of sticky silk. On the south wall, his face barely peeping over a thick, white web, hung a Dunmer male. His red eyes flickered over the twins with a mixture of desperation and curiosity.

“For Azura’s sake, you imbeciles, cut me down!”

 _Imperious little shit._ Vilkas grinned over his shoulder at Farkas before sauntering up to the spider’s erstwhile lunch. He leaned against the wall. “So, what’s your story?”

“Having a laugh, are you?” The Dunmer struggled against his silk bindings. “I’m obviously stuck here, injured and in mortal peril. Anyone with a shred of decency would cut me down without interrogation.”

“Let’s say we have that shred, but it’s buried deep. Real deep, under a huge pile of common sense and the desire to stay alive. Why’d you come down here, anyway? You probably couldn’t look a draugr in the eye without soiling yourself. What made you think you could kill one?” Vilkas knew it was bad form to taunt the poor guy, but he couldn’t help it. In fact, he considered it his duty to knock arrogant pissants down a peg or two, and who was he to ignore a calling?

The Dunmer spat and spluttered, reddish purple splotches flushing his gray cheeks. “I might ask you the same question!”

Vilkas raised his brows and his bow, and motioned to Farkas’s still-bloody sword. The Dunmer’s eyes widened and quickly narrowed, his lips curving in a shrewd grin. “Oh. Yes, of course. Perhaps I’ve been too hasty in my…well, bygones, as they say. You wouldn’t be averse to a, ah…partnership, now would you? I had an arrangement with the bandits you two obviously took care of, if you managed to get to me alive. But my guard got themselves killed by draugr, and the rest of them scurried back upstairs. But you two,” he said, sizing up the twins, his eyes lighting on Farkas’s bulk under dusty carved Nordic armor, “yes, you two could be of use.”

Vilkas snorted. “What’s in it for us?”

“Look. I’m Arvel. I’m no warrior, true, but in my many years as a thief and general ne’er-do-well, I picked up on a few things. Books have value far beyond their market price. And this barrow?” Arvel allowed a dramatic pause, and shifted his eyes between the twins. “It’s – “

“What does a Dunmer care about ancient Nord relics?” Farkas had to admit he felt a little guilty pawing through what might be tombs of his own ancestors, even for a worthy – and urgent – cause. But the thought of a foreigner desecrating burial sites just to scoop up treasure had him bristling.

“Plunder knows no pedigree,” Arvel said, his grin twisting into a sneer. “And I know how to get though this dump. I even know how to get through the locked door at the end, and beyond that –“

Farkas stepped up, guilt and anger forgotten. He and Vilkas had found nothing, so far, to help them figure out why dragons had invaded Skyrim and how to stop them, and with every empty urn and bookcase and every dusty shelf, Farkas felt the hope he’d entered the barrow with slowly ebbing away. But if there really was a locked door with a secret key…

“You know how to get through? Do you have the key? We were told -“

Arvel’s eyes shuttered at the eagerness in Farkas’s tone. Vilkas nudged his brother, but the damage was done. No way any self-respecting treasure hunter would tell them what the barrow might contain if he thought they’d come with a purpose, a goal in mind. He sighed. “Pay no attention to my brother. Let’s hear more about this partnership – exactly what do you propose?”

“Cut me down and I’ll tell you,” he said, his eyes shifting between the twins, this time with suspicion rather than showmanship.

Farkas and Vilkas exchanged a look, and Farkas shrugged. If the little shit ran off, they could always catch him, maybe even before the draugr did. “Fine.” Farkas used his sword to cut away at the webbing, trying to avoid the Dunmer’s twitching body. “Be still.”

But Arvel kept struggling and finally broke free. He pitched backwards, somersaulting to his feet and sprinting down the hall.

Vilkas rolled his eyes and clunked Farkas across the chest with his bow. “Great job, man.”

“Hey, at least we don’t have to listen to him. And what do you think’s going to happen? He’ll be dead in ten minutes, tops.”

Farkas’s prediction paid out. In the middle of the very next chamber, a draugr loomed over Arvel’s body, shaking its ancient war axe in a gruesome parody of battlefield triumph. Short-lived triumph, as Farkas cleaved its head from its body, and the draugr collapsed in a heap of bones and rusted armor.

Vilkas knelt to rummage through the pockets of Arvel’s cloak. “Here’s a journal.” He skimmed the pages, flipping through to the end. “Mentions some scholar he talked to in Winterhold – that explains how he knew about the barrow. And a claw…”

“Well, that would be this,” Farkas said, peering into Arvel’s satchel and pulling out a large claw that looked to be made of gold.

Vilkas reached out for it and passed the journal to his brother. “There’s three pictures on its…foot, I guess: an owl, a dragon, and a moth.”

“He wrote ‘when you have the golden claw, the solution is in the palm of your hands.’ Sounds like another lever puzzle to me.”

“Maybe,” Vilkas said, turning the claw over in his hand. “What sort of beast is this claw modeled from anyway? I’ve never seen the like.”

Farkas closed his eyes. _He crawled from the collapsed embankment, his eyes level with black clawed feet, razor-sharp talons digging into the soft, slushy mud._

“Dragon.”

Vilkas’s eyes crinkled with worry. His brother needed answers – they all did. “Journal say anything else?”

“Only that he stole the claw from a shop in Riverwood. Maybe after we get through this, we can give it back.”

“Always the gentleman, eh?” Vilkas grinned at his brother, stuffing the claw and journal into his pack. “I suppose that’s the right thing to do. Maybe they’ll even give us a reward for its safe return.”

A few rooms and what seemed like several dozen draugr later, they came upon a long hallway with ornate murals carved into the walls. It ended in an arched doorway barred by a massive stone circle. Vilkas strolled through the hall, casting torchlight on the carvings. “I’ve seen these in other barrows, and that same circle in one near Ivarstead. I couldn’t get into it, but,” he said, pulling the claw from his pack and motioning with it toward the door, “these talons should fit right into those hollows.”

Farkas hung back in the dark entryway, hope warring with foreboding deep in his chest. Something about the room, and that doorway, made him feel strange - lightheaded. His heart pounded, and he heard drums of war off in the distance. Roars and screams filled his ears, and visions of dragons and men in masks swam behind his eyes. He shuddered and forced himself to catch up to his brother.

Vilkas sprinted to the door and examined it under the torchlight. He looked from the door to the claw and back again. “Concentric circles, each with its own band of images. Owl, dragon, and moth, eh? Must coordinate with the pictures on the claw. But how do you get them to move?” He pressed on the outermost circle, and heard an internal mechanism whir to life. The stones ground against each other as the moth slowly moved around to the right, and an owl took its place. “Huh,” Vilkas said, “easy enough.”

Farkas nodded, and tried to stay calm. On the surface, anyway. Inside, his heart raced and he felt his skin tighten, like it didn’t fit his body anymore. The circles moved too slowly.

_Open. Open. OPEN._

The circles finally stopped spinning, and Vilkas inserted the talons of the claw into indentations in the middle of the door and grinned over his shoulder. But nothing happened. “Well, shit.” Vilkas pulled the claw away and stared at it. “I was sure that-”

Vilkas had been too engrossed in the workings of the claw and the lock to notice Farkas’s twitching fingers or darkened eyes. Or the white lines around his mouth. So when his brother’s hand whipped out and snatched the claw from his own, it came as quite a surprise.

“Hey!”

Farkas ignored his brother’s indignation and shoved the claw’s talons into the hollows. The doorway slowly began to spin, each concentric circle rotating independently as the stones sank into a crevasse at their feet.

“How the fuck-“

Farkas let out a ragged breath and charged past him into what looked like an underground forest. Vilkas just stared. He’d never seen anything like it. A waterfall thundered down the west wall and emptied into a river running the length of the cavern, sparkling in sunshine streaming down from skylights far above. Tall, spindly evergreens grew on either side of the river, dragonflies buzzing in their shadowy cover.

Farkas had sprinted off to the north, but Vilkas was more interested in the waterfall – they had plenty of time to explore. No coffins in the cavern meant no draugr, after all. He followed the river until it opened onto a pool, and noticed something sparkling just beneath the water. He jumped from stone to stone. Spray from the waterfall coated his face with mist when he reached the edge of the pool, and he crouched down.

A chest with a shining brass lock. Several chests, in fact. Ysmir’s beard, no wonder that stupid thief braved draugr to get here first – who knew what treasure ancient caverns could hold? Their task forgotten for the moment, Vilkas grinned and called over his shoulder. “Hey, Farkas! Get over here, man.”

He jiggled one of the latches and found it locked. But no matter – ancient chests were made of ancient wood, and he’d make short work of that once he’d dragged it from the pool.

“Farkas?”

No answer. Vilkas rose and climbed up an embankment on the north side of the falls. He walked through the trees and when the forest cleared, he stopped in his tracks.

Farkas stood in the middle of a raised platform, sort of like a dais in a palace throne room, staring at a huge stone wall. Taller than the waterfall, it soared toward the ceiling of the cavern. Sunlight glinted off the whorls and spirals carved into its borders and sides, the latter curved like draping, cloaked arms into the middle of the floor. A sculpted relief of an ornate horned helmet dwarfed the top half, while the bottom was covered in what looked like claw marks. Just…scratches.

Vilkas walked up a short set of steps and dropped his pack, warily noticing the stone bier and coffin at the platform’s edge. Looked like trouble. “Farkas, what-“

“Do you hear that, brother?” Farkas’s voice sounded strange. Strained and clipped, like he was attempting to hold back a scream. “I’ve heard it since the door and…and the claw. Like drums in my head. And whispers. Screams.”

“I don’t hear anything over the waterfall,” Vilkas said, gesturing off that way. “You’re not usually one for hearing voices, though.”

“No. But…”

Farkas broke off, hissing in pain. He dropped his sword and shrugged his pack and shield to the ground, holding his head in his hands. “Gods, Vil, how can you not hear this? It’s deafening.”

“Where’s it coming from?”

“Fucking wall, the words,” Farkas said, finally turning to Vilkas, his eyes wide. “You really can’t hear that?”

Vilkas looked from the wall to his brother and stumbled back. Terror lurked in Farkas’s blue eyes. Terror and…need. _Desire_. Vilkas swallowed hard – his brother didn’t hear voices and didn’t make up tales outside his third mead at the Bannered Mare. But how could both statements be true? “What…words? There are no words there. Just scratches. Chicken scratch.”

“But I can read it.” Farkas turned back to the wall. “It says ‘here lies the guardian, keeper of the dragonstone and a force of unending rage and darkness.’” Farkas looked at Vilkas again, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. “It’s on fire. Everything’s on fire” he said, his voice barely a whisper. He stumbled toward the wall and laid his hands in the center, his forehead grazing his knuckles.

Vilkas peered at him through narrowed eyes, and turned to gaze around the cavern. Farkas’s fear and intense conviction almost had him expecting something to happen. But nothing would happen – the very thought was ridiculous. It was just a…wall. Covered in scratches. No voices. No fire.

But then, something did happen. The coffin on the stone bier cracked, its lid exploding from the bier with a loud snapping sound that echoed through the cavern. Vilkas pulled his sword. A roar sounded from within, and something shot out of the coffin toward the ceiling of the cavern, screaming as it flew.

“Farkas?”

The flying demon was like a draugr, all desiccated skin and bones, but unlike a draugr as well. Vilkas watched it float back down until it hovered just above the platform, its cape fluttering in an invisible wind. Ancient armor crumbled around its ruined body, and its eyes glowed blue underneath the horned mask covering its face.

Vilkas backed up a step or two and spared a quick glance at Farkas. He was still communing with the damned wall. “Hey, brother. I, ah…I could use a little help here.”

The draugr floated toward Vilkas and spoke in a strange, guttural language, and suddenly Vilkas found himself on his ass, sliding toward the middle of Farkas’s wall.

“Farkas!” Vilkas yelled as his head smacked against the stone, and finally his brother broke away, his eyes dazed and cloudy. The draugr said something else Vilkas didn’t understand, and laughed - sort of a growling cackle - and Farkas’s eyes cleared. Without a word, he launched himself at the draugr.

Vilkas stared, open-mouthed. Farkas had no weapon – he’d dropped his sword and shield in the curve of the wall – but that didn’t stop him from punching the draugr about the head, sunlight glinting off the steel of his gauntlets with each blow.

The draugr roared and spoke again, and Farkas flew backwards, landing beside a table near the ruined coffin. He got to his feet and looked around for his sword. Vilkas rolled over and grabbed it, sliding it across the platform. Its hilt bounced off Farkas’s boot, and he snapped it up. He ran for the draugr once more, spinning and lopping its head off in one clean stroke before the monster could speak again.

The body fell to the floor, its bones and armor turning to dust.

Vilkas pulled himself to sit against the wall once more, his head ringing. That would teach him to leave off his helmet. A shadow loomed overhead and Vilkas looked up.

“You ok, brother?” Farkas grabbed Vilkas’s hands in his own and helped him to his feet.

Vilkas gingerly moved his head from side to side, and rubbed the back of his skull with a searching hand. No blood. Didn’t seem to be any swelling. “Yeah. Seems to be all right. What in Oblivion was that?”

“Draugr. Hopped-up super draugr, maybe,” Farkas said. “Whatever it is, it’s dead now. I’m going to look around to see if there’s any more.”

Vilkas nodded and screwed his eyes shut, trying to clear his blurry vision. “Hey, what was up with that wall?” But Farkas had already run behind it, and up a shadowy set of stairs. Hopefully it led to a back way outside. Vilkas heard a gate rattle open, and his brother called down.

“Looks clear, and there’s another way out. There’s some nice loot up here.”

“Some down here, too. At least we can bring that back,” Vilkas said, relieved they didn’t have to backtrack through the damned barrow. He shuffled over to inspect the coffin. Inside, wrapped in a soiled linen cloth, lay a stone tablet covered in the same chicken scratch as the wall. And several sealed scrolls. “This looks like something Farengar can use.” Vilkas looked around for his pack, and remembered he’d left it near the edge of the platform.

Farkas jumped down the last few steps and trotted over to retrieve the pack. Vilkas held his hand out for it, but Farkas hesitated. He inhaled sharply, his breath whistling as it rushed through pursed lips.

“Hey…Farkas? Something wrong?”

Farkas looked up, and the intensity of his gaze had Vilkas stepping back in surprise for the second time that day.

“I need you to do something for me, brother,” Farkas said, and slipped the pack’s strap over Vilkas’s open palm.

“What is it?”

“Don’t say anything to anyone about that wall.”

Vilkas swallowed and nodded. He opened his pack and slid the stone inside. The scrolls from the coffin fit in Farengar’s satchel with the fireball scrolls they didn’t end up needing. “Are you,” he began, and glanced back at the wall. Still just an ordinary wall. “Are you going to tell _me_ what happened?”

Farkas huffed and scrubbed his face with both hands before meeting Vilkas’s eyes. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know myself.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a silly confession to make - I rarely read stories in my fandom because I end up comparing stats and that just sends me spiraling down the black abyss of existential despair. But I always read stories of authors who read mine - it means a lot to me to do so. Here’s the rub, though. I write under another account, and sometimes I forget what account I’m logged in with, so it might look like, to some of you, that I’m not reading your stuff. But I am, it just might be under that other name. And some of you won’t care at all about this, but like I said, it means a lot to me, and I want you to know that I’m reading, even if you don’t see my name at the bottom of your story, or as a bookmark.


	10. Awakening

Farkas rolled onto his side and pillowed his head on his bicep. He couldn’t get comfortable, and it had nothing to do with his thin bedroll or the uneven ground, or even the rush of the moonlit waterfall down in the cavern – matter of fact, that last one was soothing. They’d even felt secure enough to take off their armor – the gate leading to the cavern locked from the inside, and they’d slid Farkas’s sword through latches on the outer door.

He rolled onto his back.

After they’d packed up all their loot and scrolls and the stone from the coffin, Vilkas threw open the barrow’s back door and stopped in the threshold. “Would you look at that?” He motioned toward moons hanging like bright, overripe fruit in the inky black sky. “Can you believe it’s after midnight? Hours after.”

Farkas shrugged, the day catching up to him. His back ached where that draugr had thrown him into the table, and his head ached with worry and dread. “I guess – hard to tell time underground.”

“Want to camp?”

“Yeah, up here though,” Farkas said, pointing to the floor of the little hallway leading outside. Plenty of room, and more secure. Plus, no wall looming overhead like some freakish, hulking gravestone.

But try as he might, Farkas hadn’t been able to drive the wall from his mind so easily. Fire raining from the sky and bloody battle and great, flying monsters came to life behind closed eyelids. Drums and whispers and screams-

_And the words._

His stomach lurched, and he forced the dried apples he’d eaten an hour ago back down where they belonged. How could mere speech trigger such vivid visions? He’d seen the same things back in the Pale after the dragon had lit him up and laughed, taunts spilling from its maw along with searing flames.

It  _had_  spoken, hadn’t it? Could’ve been an hallucination – he’d been in a lot of pain. The fire alone-

_Enough_.

Farkas rolled onto his other side and stared into moonlight streaming through the cavern’s skylights. No wonder he couldn’t sleep. The brave face he’d worn for Britta and Danica and Kodlak and even Vilkas was nothing but a mask, and left alone in the dark, his worries and fears took control and ate through that mask like a skeever in a grain silo. He’d come within a hair’s breadth of joining his ancestors in Sovngarde, true. But the shadow of Kyne’s lips had darkened his forehead more than once before, and his sleep never suffered for it.

No, death alone wasn’t enough. Skyrim was home to far more fearsome specters than death. For one, there was magic, and that dragon and the claw and the wall and the draugr fairly reeked of it.

So, why hadn’t he stayed away? He’d been driven toward the wall and its fiery blather, sure. Compelled by it, to lay his hands on that blazing inscription. But he’d resisted compulsion before – he’d never killed a human being in cold blood, though his beastblood had stoked that desire. He didn’t indulge to excess – whether drink or food or women; he’d seen the effects of such indulgence in family and friends and sometimes even his own shield-siblings, and wanted no part of it.

But that wall. He’d lost control of himself somehow, and loss of control scared him even more than the dragon. To make matters worse, he felt something when he’d touched it. Sort of a humming energy or warmth that… _oozed_ …into his hands and his blood, and – yet another thing he didn’t want to admit: he felt good once it settled. Comfortable and relaxed, like he’d taken a long swallow of mead or soaked in a warm bath.

Farkas rolled onto his back and screwed his eyes shut. Skjor’d told him once what he did when sleep wouldn’t come – he’d recite poetry backwards. Or songs. At the time, Farkas thought it sounded sketchy, like a trick to get him to look stupid so Aela could laugh and call him Ice-Brain again. But right now, he’d try just about anything. He was alone except for Vilkas, dead to the world and snoring a few paces away. Who’d hear it?

Could he think of any poems or songs, though? Nothing he’d heard at the Bannered Mare seemed right, and he didn’t want Mikael haunting his dreams anyway, leering bastard of a bard.

One of the women he’d met in Helgen had given him a book of love poems, and he liked a few of them, one in particular. His brain struggled to work in reverse, scanning through the verses to the one at the end – his favorite.

“‘Home…my home…’ no,  _makes_. ‘Home…my…makes…which soul the warms…’”

He swore under his breath. Skjor might have been onto something after all. Talking backwards was harder than he’d thought, but his eyes did feel a little heavier.

Vilkas snorted, a snuffly racket that echoed off the walls, and rolled over – bedroll and all – to rest against his brother’s side. Farkas chuckled softly and started over.

“‘Home my…makes which soul the warm and…creep….will I burrow…that in so…stone…’”

 

* * *

 

 

The sun seemed to fly across the sky faster than the twins could run down the rocky path toward Whiterun, even though Vilkas set a punishing pace, which suited Farkas just fine. Jogging down the trail didn’t leave much breath for conversation, and Farkas knew Vilkas’s tenuous control over his curiosity wouldn’t hold out much longer.

_And it shouldn’t._

A burning, talking wall only his brother could hear? Flying draugr who’d knocked them both on their asses with nothing but a word? No, unanswered questions hung tense in the air between them like a too-tight bowstring, and Farkas didn’t expect Vilkas’s inquisitive nature to outlast the day.

As well, both brothers knew the high stakes of their mission, and felt them rise with every step. Skyrim’s survival could well depend on the artifact and scrolls from the barrow. Vilkas hadn’t been able to read what was written on that stone, and didn’t dare break the seals on the scrolls – who knew what magic lurked in their millennia-old parchment? But maybe Farengar could make sense of it.

They’d just cleared the shady mountain path and come out into the sun, Dragonsreach no more than a tiny speck on a hill far in the distance, when they heard it – a roar, out of the west. The brothers stopped in their tracks and pulled their swords. “Saber cat?” Farkas let a whisper of hope suffuse his voice – a whisper more than he felt. “Bear?”

But even as the words left his mouth, he knew neither animal had made that sound. A reedy chuckle bubbled up from his chest and he forced it back down – damned if he’d ever imagined a day when a cave bear seemed a favorable opponent.

Farkas stepped back under a draping pine at the edge of the forest and jerked his head to the side, motioning for Vilkas to join him. “If it’s a dragon, we don’t want to fight if we don’t have to. Maybe it’ll keep going if it doesn’t know anyone’s here.”

Both brothers stood with their backs against the knotty trunk, listening as it roared again, closer this time. The forest swayed overhead. Vilkas swallowed hard and met his brother’s wide-eyed gaze. Wings. A dragon, then. No doubt. The dappled sun at their feet grew dark, and its shadow circled around to the clearing they’d just left behind.

_Thud_.

Birds flew from their nests in a cacophony of rustles and squawks, and Farkas watched them escape with envious eyes, fighting for purchase on shaking ground.

“It landed,” Vilkas said in a choked whisper, and grabbed Farkas’s arm. “Fuck, Farkas. It’s on the ground.”

“I know,” Farkas said, and looked from right to left, remembering his bearings. Riverwood was a couple of hours away and so was Whiterun. Not another village or farm or settlement for miles. “Just stay still. Maybe it didn’t see us.”

Vilkas nodded and kept his back against the tree, shivering. Farkas understood – he felt the same way. His muscles quivered, the compulsion to run fast and far nearly irresistible. But he crouched instead, his left hand gripping the trunk as he silently lowered his body. He could just see the beast, sitting in the sunny clearing. Long grasses waved under wings held slightly aloft.

“Is it the same…”

Vilkas’s whisper trailed off, but Farkas didn’t need to hear the rest of the question. He’d wondered the same thing.

Light gray body. He couldn’t tell what color its eyes were, only that they weren’t burning red.

He shook his head. Two competing emotions lashed at his gut: first, relief that this beast wasn’t the huge black monster from the Pale, and second? Horror. There were two of them.

Likely more, then.

He stared at it, sizing it up in relation to the grasses and nearby trees. The length of its shadow in the mid morning sun. It was maybe a third of the black dragon’s size.

“Vil. Can you hit that thing from here?”

Vilkas craned his neck to look over his shoulder. “Not easily. I’d have to be closer for precision. Maybe fifteen paces or so.”

Farkas considered strategy, should the dragon not leave. Should they have to engage. Every creature had vulnerabilities, even a dragon.

He hoped so, anyway.

Its eyes, large and round on either side of its face, were protected by bony brows. Bony-looking scales covered its body – were there chinks in between, anything exploitable? Its wings fluttered in the breeze, like thin, translucent leather stretched over a frame–

_It knows we’re here._

The realization slithered its way into his gut and chilled his blood. His breath caught. He rose from his crouch and once again resisted the urge to run.

The dragon hadn’t roared, hadn’t moved to invade their bolthole since it landed in the clearing. Even so, Farkas sensed its regard with every breath, every whisper. He felt his chest tighten. “It knows we’re here, Vilkas.”

No, that was wrong. Something nagged deep inside, and he swallowed and closed his eyes. Farkas heard his own heartbeat in his ears, a staccato tattoo that belied his own terror, and he knew the dragon heard it, too. A loud beat thudded over his own, low and deep. He looked over his shoulder at Vilkas. Silence. Farkas shivered against the tree as Vilkas had, and forced himself to breathe.

_It knows_ I’m _here._

Vilkas cursed under his breath. “What do we do?”

The black dragon from the Pale had lit his party up without hesitation, and Farkas expected nothing different from its kin once they made their move to escape. There wasn’t much they could do. Unless…

_It knows_ I’m _here._

Farkas reached for his shield and buckled it over his arm, trying to keep his movements slow and steady. “I’m going to distract it. I’ll stay under the trees all I can, but you try to get closer under cover. Get to the tree line curving off to the left, there. If it’s focused on me, maybe you can get a good shot. And then…you run.”

“What?” Vilkas sheathed his sword and reached for his bow. “No. I’m not-“

“It’ll be all right. I survived once, didn’t I?”

Farkas met Vilkas’s thunderous stare with what he hoped was a reassuring expression. He wasn’t sure – how was he supposed to reassure anyone when his own odds of ending yet another day as a burnt corpse were so fucking high? At the very least, maybe Vilkas could escape, get back to Whiterun to warn everyone else. “This is our best shot, you know it. If we have to fight, brute strength isn’t going to get it done.”

Farkas silently clapped Vilkas on the shoulder and shoved him off through the forest. Once he was safely hidden among the trees, Farkas crept to the edge of the clearing and gazed out at the dragon. It inclined its head in Farkas’s direction and shook its wings out, the curved claws at their crests glinting in the sun.

A tiny gout of smoke and flame puffed from its snout and it spoke, the words nearly drowned by the pounding of Farkas’s heart and pebbles grinding under his boots as he stumbled back.

“Yes, you understand,” the dragon rumbled. And Farkas did understand – but how? It wasn’t the Common tongue snarling and growling from the dragon’s jaws. His face burned hot – Vilkas hadn’t understood the flying draugr back in the barrow, but  _he_  had.  _And_  the wall…

Farkas stared at the dragon and took another step back. The beast let out a low chuckle. “Then again, perhaps you do not. Your blood,” it said, tapping its chest with a claw, “your ancient blood. It has…awakened, mortal.”

Farkas didn’t trust himself to speak. If he could understand this gobbledygook, this language he’d never learned, could he speak it as well? He didn’t want to find out.

“It called to me, your blood.” The dragon babbled on, folding its wings back against its body. “Alight with its first Word of Power, flowing through your veins like quicksilver. Crying out for a spark.”

The dragon paused, and stepped from foot to foot. Fire chuffed from its snout, blackening the grasses waving under its neck. “You will not speak?”

Farkas shook his head and shifted his sword in his hand, and the dragon laughed. “Brave. Foolish. Your power is new. You cannot best one of my kind.”

Had Vilkas made it to the edge of the forest yet? Farkas closed his eyes and tried to keep his head clear and calm. What if Vilkas snapped a twig on his way to the clearing, or disturbed a nest of terns? Panic bubbled up in his throat. Their plan was doomed from the start. How could they think they stood a chance against a dragon?

A faint  _click_  sounded from the tree line, and a piercing shriek shattered the uneasy silence in the clearing. Farkas looked up and his mouth fell open. A black arrow barely protruded from the beast’s right eye, its gray fletching splashed with blood. Farkas couldn’t believe their luck, and Vilkas’s skill - unless the dragon had some sort of shield covering its brain, it couldn’t last much longer.

The dragon threw his head back and roared, and another arrow pierced the exposed spaces between the scales on the underside of his throat.

The dragon let out a strangled, keening wail and turned in the direction of the volley. Farkas pushed aside his fears and questions and sprinted from the trees, his sword held tight against his side. A gout of fire flew toward the forest, and Farkas spared a quick glance – blackened tree trunks and red-orange embers falling like rain from drooping branches. No Vilkas.

Farkas ran for the dragon’s underside and its leathery wings. If the monster somehow survived its wounds and took to the sky, they’d be lost amid its fiery breath, no matter how handy Vilkas was with a bow.

If his brother was still alive.

He felt an arrow whiz past, and hot relief spurred his steps. Farkas swung his sword over his head and slashed through the left wing. His sword hit bone and he pulled it back, and kept running, slashing wherever he could reach.

Arrows flew around him, and judging from the dragon’s shrieks, very few missed their mark. Farkas took advantage of the dragon’s distress and slashed at its back legs. A gout of fire flew his way, and he raised his shield. Heat seared through ebony, and Farkas smelled burning flesh and hair, its sweetly-acrid scent too familiar after the walk from the Pale. Flames licked at his legs before he ran out of range.

It seemed to go on for hours, their pattern of attack: volley, slash, dodge. But just when Farkas started to believe the dragon really did have a shield covering its brain, its roars turned to groans, and it listed left and right. Farkas rolled from under its hindquarters into a crouch, watching in disbelief as it finally tumbled to the ground, the bones of its shredded wing crunching under its bulk.

When the ground stopped shaking, he circled in a wide arc, watching the dragon’s head twist on the ground, its throat pin-cushioned with arrows. Blood-flecked jaws hung wide, and Farkas sprinted back and to the side, but no fire issued from its snout – just a ragged breath, like air pushed through busted bellows. Farkas kept his sword drawn, and slowly,  _slowly_ …stepped closer.

 

* * *

 

 Vilkas sprinted from the smoldering woods and watched his brother approach the fallen behemoth. Farkas’s lips moved, and he spoke. Vilkas slowed his pace and squinted. Was he seeing things? Farkas opened his mouth again and shook his head, his eyes glued to the dragon’s.

No, he definitely spoke, his jaw oddly squared, as if he had an underbite. Vilkas had seen him speak like that once – they’d met an Orsimer legionnaire at the Bannered Mare and treated him to some mead. After a few drinks, he’d taught them a word or two in the orcs’ ancient language and laughed uproariously at their horrific pronunciation and jutting jaws.

But why would Farkas speak orc to a dragon? Why would he speak at all?

Vilkas couldn’t hear his brother’s words, but he saw Farkas’s back stiffen, and trotted closer. The dragon snarled – a gagging, rasping growl – and Farkas seemed to deflate, his sword hanging limply from his hand.

The dragon snarled again, and Farkas yelled something incomprehensible, clenching his fist around his sword and plunging it into the beast’s neck. Blood pooled around his boots, but Farkas stood still, his chest heaving as he gulped for air.

“Brother?”

Farkas’s vacant gaze traveled from the blood at his feet to the blood on his sword, and finally his eyes met Vilkas’s.

Hollow, empty eyes.

Vilkas cleared his throat and took a tentative step toward his brother. They’d just fought a dragon, and won. A victorious battle with a beast they hadn’t known existed before last week, and something they’d assumed impossible to take down. So, why did Farkas seem so…bleak? “You hurt?”

Farkas shook his head and cleared his throat. “B-burns on my arm and legs,” he began, peering at Vilkas through narrowed eyes. After a second’s pause, he swallowed and went on. “The fire cooked my armor and shield. Its tail grazed my head once, but it’s fine. You?”

Vilkas shook his head and glanced back at the blackened corner of the woods where he’d hidden with his bow. Lucky for everyone in the Hold, they’d had a soaking winter – the fire had snuffed itself out. “That first spray of fire blew a branch back into my face,” he said, and ran a finger down a wide, red welt running from his temple to his mouth. “But otherwise, I’d say we got off easy.”

Vilkas cleared his throat again. “Did I see,” he began, and frowned. Such a  _ridiculous_  question, he felt stupid even thinking of it. “I could swear I saw you talking to that dragon.”

Farkas huffed and stared off into the distance, and Vilkas stepped behind the dragon’s head, forcing himself into his brother’s line of sight. “Farkas, it looked like you were having a conversation with that thing. What-“

Farkas grunted and knelt to wipe his sword in the grass. He turned away from Vilkas and trotted around the dragon, his fingertips grazing the arrows piercing its throat and wings.

“What are you doing? You didn’t answer-“

“Next fight’s not going to be like this one. Need to know how many strikes it took to kill this bastard,” Farkas said, counting off on his fingers. “I’m counting fifteen arrows. I slashed at its wings more than I can count, and the sinews at the backs of his…knees, whatever dragons have back-“

“Farkas,” Vilkas said, anger beginning to boil in his chest. He’d been patient, he really had. But he wasn’t stupid, and he had eyes – Farkas had left something out of his story back at Jorrvaskr, something about that black dragon. And then, his weird reaction to the wall. No one wanted to admit to hearing voices from inanimate objects, so he didn’t blame Farkas for his reticence. But this had gone too far. There were dragons – plural – flying around Skyrim. The time for secrets had come and gone.

“Hey,” Vilkas snapped, sidling in between his brother and the dragon, “were you talking? Was it talking to you? All I heard were growls and snarls and gagging sounds, but you…”

Vilkas scrubbed his hair back from his face. “That wall, you said it spoke to you. And the flying draugr. It said something – again, all I heard were snarls – but you looked at it like it insulted your manhood or something, and flew at it. Beat the shit out of it. And now this,” he said, sweeping an arm around the clearing. “What’s going on?”

The brothers faced each other in a silent standoff. Finally, Farkas shook his head. “I-“

He broke off. The ground beneath the dragon started to shake, and the dragon trembled with it.

“I thought it was dead,” Vilkas said, backing up and pulling his bow. “Wasn’t it dead? Why’s it moving? Is there another one?”

Farkas glanced up at the sky, but nothing flew overhead. He crouched a little, steadying himself and readying his sword again. But the dragon didn’t rise, and its eyes remained closed. Vilkas heard a pop and the telltale _whoosh_ of a spark hitting an oil-soaked funeral pyre, and pulled Farkas back just in time to avoid the flames and ash whipping around the dragon’s body.

The brothers watched in stunned silence while the conflagration flared, consuming skin and flesh and blood, until only bones and a few scales remained on bare, blackened ground.

Glowing ashes and embers flickered from the skeleton and spiraled above their heads, coalescing in a shimmering mist. It hovered, iridescent and sparkling in the sun, and drifted.

Toward Farkas.

For a moment or two, the mist swirled around Farkas’s body and hung there like a living cloak. He held a hand before his face, twisting it this way and that, the mist clinging to his fingers. His eyes widened and darkened.

Farkas drew a ragged breath. The mist pulsed. And again.

The strange mist wasn’t hurting Farkas, at least not that he could see, but Vilkas tore his eyes away from his brother and scanned the clearing and the forest’s edge. Dead bodies didn’t catch fire and dissolve into sparkles. Was this the work of some mage? An illusionist, or even a conjurer? The breeze had stilled, and the grasses. Time itself seemed to slow. He heard a sharp gasp.

The mist flickered and flared, and seemed to thin out a little. But Farkas gasped again, and Vilkas looked closer. It wasn’t dissipating at all, but disappearing into his brother’s chest, a stream of power that sank into his skin under his armor. Farkas’s eyes glowed a sparkling silver, and a choking sound escaped his lips.

Vilkas tried to wave the mist away, but his hand passed through it like it was nothing but air. He dropped his bow in the burned grass and tried again with both hands, beating on Farkas’s armor. Nothing.

His brother’s body finally stopped glowing and Vilkas waited, his heart pounding. He swallowed, and opened his mouth to speak, but Farkas’s scream had him stepping back and closing it again. Vilkas grasped the hilt of his sword.

Farkas screamed again, a choking, gagging scream, and fell to his knees. He screamed again, and again, and just when Vilkas thought he could scream no longer, his brother’s eyes closed and – for the second time in as many weeks – he crumpled to the ground.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Far to the north, hundreds of feet above the Sea of Ghosts, a woman paused, her hand clenching the spine of a leather-bound volume. She slammed her other palm against the library wall and steadied herself, her feet shuffling a little on the ladder’s bottom rung. Power throbbed deep in her chest. An odd little breeze drifted through the room, its warm eddy swirling around her body, setting her green tunic a-flutter and ruffling chestnut curls.

Her heart raced. She shelved the book among its brethren and stepped to the stone floor, trying to keep her hands steady and watching warily for the librarian.

Had he noticed an errant gust of wind blow through a room with no open windows or doors?

More to the point: did he notice her near spill from a ladder with one of his precious books in her hand?

Maybe. The librarian rose from his desk and strolled down the aisle. A ball of magelight followed, casting an enormous shadow that loomed over the books she’d haphazardly piled on a nearby table. His tusks twitched. He glared down at the books, green fingers twitching as well, but took a deep breath and rested his arms across his chest.

“Fey,” he drawled, his sing-song voice gruff and warm at the same time, like caramel warming over hot jagged rocks. “You alright?”

“Yes, Urag,” she said, and forced a small chuckle. “Just lost my balance.”

Urag chuffed and finally gave into temptation, straightening Fey’s to-be-shelved pile into an orderly stack. “I didn’t know Bosmer could do that.”

He’d not noticed her clothes and hair, then. Fey relaxed a little. Urag would stop at nothing to suss out a potential threat to his library, and an impossible wind? Unauthorized magic? That sort of investigation would bring far too much attention to her quiet little corner of the College. “Well, there’s Nord, too, in there somewhere. And you know how Nords are around books.”

“I do at that.” His gaze rested on her rounded cheeks and eyes, their irises a pale shade of icy green unusual amid the deep forest wilderness of Valenwood. Fey had mentioned distant Nord blood, in passing, but her height (even with a topknot, her head barely cleared his chest) made such details difficult for Urag to remember.

“Young Onmund recently earned a two-week suspension for ham-handing  _A Minor Maze._ He means well, he does. But those pages still got ripped. But you,” he said, pulling a chair over to her table and giving her shoulder a hesitant pat, “you still look shaky, go ahead and have a seat. Take a minute. Catch your breath.”

“Thanks, Urag,” Fey said, grabbing the top book from her pile and heading back to the ladder, “I didn’t know you cared.”

Urag blocked her way, and nodded toward the chair. “I care. A lot. About my books. Sit.”

She rolled her eyes and grinned up at Urag, but sat. Maybe he was onto something, she thought, taking a few deep breaths and trying to calm her still-racing heart.

No use.

Not when she knew what that rush of power signified. Ever since Ulfric Stormcloak killed Skyrim’s king and raised the stakes of his rebellion to impossible heights, she’d been waiting for it. Dreading it.

_When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding…_

Fey jammed the knuckle of her right thumb into her mouth to stifle a full-blown panic, and bit down. Hard.

_The World-Eater wakes and the Wheel turns…_

Fey glanced around the library, trying to ground herself amid its beeswax-polished wood, and comforting parchment and leather scents. Urag’s thumping steps, and snow lashing at stained-glass windows. She touched a book and a silver candlestick, her fingertips tracing cool, ornate scrollwork.

Her place – here, she felt safe. Confident.

_Hidden_.

But not for long. In her mind’s eye, flames engulfed the library, shattering its windows and tumbling its arches and domes, stone by crumbling stone, into the sea below.

… _the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn._

“Shit,” she whispered, and hid her face in her hands.

 


End file.
